THE CONTEXT: Australia has declared a state of emergency for the state of New South Wales (NSW) along with a catastrophic fire warning the highest level of bush fire danger in light of widespread bushfires that have left at least three people dead. Bushfires are a routine occurrence in the country, but this bushfire season is believed to be the worst and has started even before the beginning of the Southern Hemisphere summer.

PRESENT ISSUE OF FOREST FIRE

AMAZON FOREST FIRE

• The Amazon rainforest, which is home to a fifth of the world’s land species and more than 30 million people, including hundreds of indigenous people, experienced the third-worst forest fires in the last ten years.
• The region has experienced more than 74,155 fires since January, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE).
• In 2019 September 19,925 fires broke out, 19.6 per cent less than the number of fire outbreaks same period last year, according to the latest INPE data. In September 2018, there were 24,803 outbreaks in the Amazon.

CALIFORNIA FIRE

• Brush fire in Ventura county, north of Los Angeles, grew rapidly on Friday, even as calmer winds have allowed fire crews to increase containment of other wildfires plaguing California.
• The forest fire in California is frequently in a year.

BANDIPUR NATIONAL PARK

• A five-day fire that raged through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve has reportedly burnt more than 15,400 acres of forests.
• Between February 21 and 25, 2019 the reserve saw 127 fire counts in various ranges of the 912 sq km forest.

FOREST FIRE

• The most common hazard in forests is forests fire. Forests fires are as old as the forests themselves. They pose a threat not only to the forest wealth but also to the entire regime to fauna and flora seriously disturbing the bio-diversity and the ecology and environment of a region.
• During summer, when there is no rain for months, the forests become littered with dry senescent leaves and twinges, which could burst into flames ignited by the slightest spark.
• The Himalayan forests, particularly, Garhwal Himalayas have been burning regularly during the last few summers, with colossal loss of vegetation cover of that region.
• Forest fire causes imbalances in nature and endangers biodiversity by reducing faunal and floral wealth. Traditional methods of fire prevention are not proving effective and it is now essential to raise public awareness on the matter, particularly among those people who live close to or in forested areas.

CAUSES OF FOREST FIRE

Causes of forest fires can be divided into two broad categories

1. Environmental (which are beyond control) and
2. Human related (which are controllable).

Environmental causes

• Are largely related to climatic conditions such as temperature, wind speed and direction, level of moisture in soil and atmosphere and duration of dry spells.
• Other natural causes are the friction of bamboos swaying due to high wind velocity and rolling stones that result in sparks setting off fires in highly inflammable leaf litter on the forest floor.

Human related causes

Result from human activity as well as methods of forest management.  These can be intentional or unintentional, for example:

• Graziers and gatherers of various forest products starting small fires to obtain good grazing grass as well as to facilitate gathering of minor forest produce like flowers of Madhuca indica and leaves of Diospyros melanoxylon
• The centuries old practice of shifting cultivation (especially in the North-Eastern region of India and in parts of the States of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh). etc..

Classification of Forest Fire Forest fire can broadly be classified into three categories;

1. Natural or controlled forest fire.
2. Forest fires caused by heat generated in the litter and other biomes in summer through carelessness of people (human neglect) and
3. Forest fires purposely caused by local inhabitants.

Types of Forest Fire: There are two types of forest fire

1. Surface Fire and
2. Crown Fire

Surface Fire

• A forest fire may burn primarily as a surface fire, spreading along the ground as the surface litter (senescent leaves and twigs and dry grasses etc) on the forest floor and is engulfed by the spreading flames.

Crown Fire

• The other type of forest fire is a crown fire in which the crown of trees and shrubs burn, often sustained by a surface fire.
• A crown fire is particularly very dangerous in a coniferous forest because resinous material given off burning logs burn furiously.
• On hill slopes, if the fire starts downhill, it spreads up fast as heated air adjacent to a slope tends to flow up the slope spreading flames along with it. If the fire starts uphill, there is less likelihood of it spreading downwards.

EFFECT OF FOREST FIRE

Fires are a major cause of forest degradation and have wide ranging adverse ecological, economic and social impacts, including:

• Loss of valuable timber resources
• Degradation of catchment areas
• Loss of biodiversity and extinction of plants and animals
• Loss of wildlife habitat and depletion of wildlife
• Loss of natural regeneration and reduction in forest cover
• Global warming etc…

VARIOUS INITIATIVES

MoEFCC guidelines

MoEFCC issued a set of national guidelines for forest fire prevention and control in 2000. These guidelines call for:

• Identification and mapping of all fire prone areas,
• Compilation and analysis of database on forest fire damages,
• Development and installation of fire damage rating system and fire forecasting system,
• All preventive measures to be taken before the beginning of the fire season

National Master Plan for Forest Fire Control

The main objectives are:

• To strengthen the organizations responsible for forest fire management
• To coordinate international transfer of technology and training in the field of forest fire management
• Creation of a strong database for: number of fires, area burnt, damage to flora and fauna, effect of fire on land and soil and measures taken
• Assessment of ecological, social, and economic impact of fires
• Strong national extension strategy for people’s awareness and their participation in forest fire management through Joint Forest Management and NGOs

Forest Fire Prevention and Management Scheme

In 2017, Intensification of Forest Management Scheme was revised and replaced as Forest Fire Prevention & Management Scheme. The main objectives of the scheme are as follows:

• Minimise forest fire incidences and help in restoring productivity of forests in affected areas
• Encourage partnership with forest fringe communities for forest protection
• Prepare fire danger rating system and devise forest fire forecasting system

Pre-Warning Alert System

• Forest Survey of India has developed Pre-Warning Alert System.
• It gives alerts to state forest departments based on parameters like forest cover, forest types, climatic variables (temperature, rainfall) and recent fire incidences over the area

NDMA Guidelines

Major recommendations include:

• Incorporate Forest Fire Prevention and Management (FFPM) in existing policy and planning documents
• Establish National Forest fire Knowledge Network
• Capacity building of forest officials for better use of early warning systems
• Assess risk and prepare vulnerability and risk maps
• Document national and international good practices and utilise them for making forest fire management more effective and practical
• Increase community awareness

Draft National Forest Policy, 2018

• It calls for safeguarding ecosystems from forest fires, mapping the vulnerable areas and developing and strengthening early warning systems and methods to control fire, based on remote sensing technology and community participation.

FAO Recommendations on Forest Fire Management

• To conduct comprehensive analysis of the forest fire situation in India, including the study of number of fires and area burnt; the effects of ecological, economic and social impacts, current capacity for forest fire management at the National and States levels, including review of existing laws, regulations and policies covering forest fire management.
• To design a training package on strategic forest fire management planning which would enable Indian foresters to prepare site specific fire plans for all the forest types in the country
• To conduct training courses for the foresters and planners, who would then be capable of preparing strategic Forest Fire Management Plans and providing identical training to large number of field foresters throughout the country.
• To develop minimum one model State Forest Fire Management Plan to serve as an example for subsequent State plans and National plan. Plans are to be organized into a series of program components, which can be considered for development assistance by international donors and financiers.

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES:

1. Lack of appropriate policy: In India there are no clear guidelines for forest fire management. In November 2017, National Green Tribunal (NGT) had asked the Environment Ministry to evolve a national policy for prevention and control of forest fires. However, no progress has been made so far.
2. Lack of funding: the allocation of funds to the states for forest fire management is largely insufficient. Further, a large amount of the money allocated under the forest management schemes are not released
3. Early Warning: Unlike western countries, forest fire in India is largely man-made which makes it difficult to predict
4. Lack of community participation: In most of the Indian states, community participation in forest fire management has been poor
5. Lack of manpower: Lack of manpower hinders clearing of fire lines and also affects the patrolling of forest areas.
6. Climate Change: The forest fire management in India do not include climate change aspects in planning, policy formulations and implementation stages

WAY FORWARD:

Policy

At the national level, a cohesive policy or action plan should be formulated to set forth the guiding principles and framework for FFPM. The policy and programmes for forest fire management should incorporate the dimension of climate change

Management

Forest fire prevention and management practices used by state forest departments also need to be strengthened

Funding and Human Resource

Greater funding for construction of watchtowers and crew stations and for frontline officers and seasonal firewatchers to spot fires is needed. Further, adequate training should be provided to field officers, seasonal firewatchers, and community volunteers involved in firefighting.

Technology

Modern firefighting techniques such as the radio-acoustic sound system for early fire detection and Doppler radar should be adopted.

Data and information

There is a need to support forest fire management through improved data and research to fill critical knowledge gaps

Awareness

Awareness generation for forest communities and visitors is important to prevent loss of life and injuries. Further, regular drills on escape methods and routes based on forest types should be conducted.

Best Practices:

1.Canadian Forest fire Danger Rating System:

• The system collects data on fuels, weather, topography, foliar moisture content (how much moisture is in the leaves and pine needles), and type and duration of prediction.
• The data helps managers of various fire agencies determine the areas that are most vulnerable to fires and allocate their resources accordingly. Further, the Canadian Forest Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) System helps managers assess how far a specific fire can spread and its severity.

2. Role of forest community: Best Practice in India:

• Bilapaka village in Mayurbhanj District of Odhisa: The villagers have set up the Bilapaka Jangal Surakshya Parichalana Committee (BJSPC).
• The villagers have developed an effective warning mechanism and a process to immediately stop small fire incidents

CONCLUSION: A significant amount of technical options to assist Forest Department in increasing their resilience, preparedness and response capacities against forest fire are known and available at regional, national and international levels. However, the spectrum of available options is often not known or easily accessible. To make Forest Fire Management more effective, it is of utmost significance that available options are systematically assessed, documented, shared and adapted to location specific needs in a participatory way.

STATISTICAL REPORT:

Forest Fires Report in India:

• Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and World Bank recently released a joint report on forest fires in India.

Highlights:

• At least 60% of districts in India are affected by forest fires each year.
• The top 20 districts in terms of area affected by fire from 2003 to 2016 account for 48% of the total fire-affected area and they mostly fall in Central India.
• The 16 of the top 20 districts in terms of fire frequency are located mainly in the Northeast.
• Here, forest fires tend to be concentrated in a smaller area that is subject to repeated burning.
• The peak fire season is the most concentrated (shortest) in the Northeast and the Northern state of Bihar.
• Fires in other regions, particularly districts in Central and Southern India, are more expansive.
• Districts experiencing widespread and frequent forest fires include areas of dry and moist deciduous forest.
• These include the borderlands of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Telangana that are affected by fire on a nearly annual basis.
• Notably, between 2006 and 2015, forest fires were detected in just under half (281 of 614) of the protected areas in India.

What are the proposed reasons?

• In line with other parts of the world, people are the main driver of fires in India.
• Forest fires are distributed close to people and infrastructure in India.
• Also, India’s monsoons are largely responsible for the seasonal nature of forest fires in the country.
• Forest fires peak during the dry months of March or April before the arrival of the monsoon.
• The fire season mainly occurs during the four-month period between February 15 and May 15.
• Besides, the reduced contrast in land-sea temperatures had weakened the engine that drives the monsoon.
• But it is not yet clear how the drying of the monsoon has affected the intensity or frequency of forest fires.

Significance:

• Forest fires contribute to global warming and hence climate change, by releasing carbon stored in trees, undergrowth and soil into the atmosphere.
• Given this, the report gains significance with recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on global warming.
• The findings are crucial for India’s own pledge on creating additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of Co2-equivalent by 2030.
• In the long run, climate shifts due to anthropogenic global warming may further alter India’s forest landscape and fire regime.
• Also, the MoEF issued national guidelines on Forest Fire Prevention and Management (FFPM) in 2000.
• But these are no longer being implemented in true spirit.
• The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has documented the shortage of dedicated funding for FFPM at the central and state levels.
• The recent report is thus expected to be a key input in issuing a national policy on FFPM.

THE CONTEXT: The recent incidents of landslides in Himalayan states and the Western Ghats have again put the spotlight on the need for early detection, warning, and prevention systems and adopting sustainable solutions for better management of landslides disasters in India. This article analyses causes, impact & suggestive steps regarding Landslides.

WHAT IS A LANDSLIDE?

• Landslide is a physical phenomenon when a part of rock, and/or debris/ soil fall due to the action of gravity.
• It is caused by a set of terrain-specific geo-factors (e.g., slope, lithology, rock structure, land use/ cover, geomorphology, etc.) and in general is triggered by heavy rainfall or earthquake tremors.
• In Indian terrain, landslide events are mostly triggered by monsoonal rainfall but examples of earthquake-triggered landslides are also not uncommon in India (e.g., Uttarkashi Earthquake, Chamoli Earthquake, Sikkim Earthquake, etc).
• The entire Himalayan tract, hills/ mountains in sub-Himalayan terrains of North-east India, Western Ghats, the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu Konkan areas are landslide-prone.

RECENT LANDSLIDE DISASTERS

ü  On 26th July, nine people lost their lives when a landslide suddenly flung boulders down a hill in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur district.

ü  On 18th July 18, a series of landslides in two areas of Mumbai claimed at least 32 lives.

ü  On 14th July, five died in HP’s Kangra district after heavy rainfall triggered floods and landslides.

IMPORTANT FACTS RELATED TO LANDSLIDE RISK IN INDIA

• India has mountainous and hilly areas in as many as 16 states and two UTs, located in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan region and the Western Ghats.
• The area prone to landslides accounts for about 12.6% of the Indian landmass, translating into 4.2 lakh square kilometers in absolute terms.
• This area spans across more than 170 districts.
• India accounts for about 18 percent of the total global fatalities due to landslides in the hills. Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, and Ladakh record more than 65 percent of the landslides in the country, followed by the Northeast Himalayas and the Western Ghats.

WHY DO THE HIMALAYAS EXPERIENCE MORE LANDSLIDES THAN THE WESTERN GHATS?

• The Himalayas are one of the youngest fold mountains of the world. They are formed by the convergent movement of the Indian plate and Eurasian plate rather they are still rising in height. These tectonic movements cause frequent earthquakes in the region often resulting in landslides. Whereas the Western Ghats lies in the stable Deccan shieldless prone to landslides than the Himalayas.
• The Himalayas are greater in height than the Western Ghats. The slopes are comparatively steeper which increases the chance of landslide. Whereas the Western Ghats is much lesser in height than the Himalayas.
• The perennial rivers in the Himalayas carry a huge amount of silt and debris. The melting of glaciers even increasing the flow of water during summer thus leading to more amount of landslides. But the Western Ghats on the other hand does not face such a situation.

MAJOR LANDSLIDE PRONE AREAS OF INDIA

ANALYSING THE REASONS BEHIND LANDSLIDE

HUMAN INTERVENTION

• Human activity such as the construction of roads, buildings, and railways, mining and quarrying, and hydropower projects damage hilly slopes and impact natural drainage by removing soil and vegetation, loosening soil and gravel, and making the hills more susceptible to landslides.
• India accounted for 28% of construction-triggered landslide events, followed by China (9%), and Pakistan (6%).
• India also accounted for maximum landslides triggered by mining, at 12%, followed by Indonesia (11.7%), and China (10%).
• Bootstrapping an incompatible model of development in the hills, represented by big hydroelectric projects and large-scale construction activity involving the destruction of forests and damming of rivers, is an invitation to disasters like landslides.
• According to the GSI report, infrastructural development for tourism that involved the modification of slopes – construction of new roads and widening of existing ones, building houses, hotels, and homestays – increased the vulnerability of mountains in both the Himalayas and the Western Ghats to the rain and made the landslides and floods that much more devastating. For example, landslides in Kodagu.
• In the Western Ghats, Plantations are also the major reason for landslides. Imported tree species cannot withstand the local weather conditions and get uprooted even in a slight downpour. For example, Nilgiris initially had a lot of native trees and millet species but monoculture transformed the soil. With the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and repeat planting methods, the texture of the soil changed gradually.

UNPLANNED DEVELOPMENT, FLAWED REGULATIONS

• A study analyzing building regulations in eight towns in the Himalayan region found that building bylaws do not make provisions for the particular geo-environmental context of a settlement. The same land use regulations apply regardless of topographical location, slope angle and direction, and the hazard potential of a site.
• The National Landslide Risk Management Strategy published by the NIDM in September 2019 also flagged this anomaly. The regulations are mostly inspired by Delhi Master Plan(s).
• Lack of local land use planning or its updation in the urban local bodies of the Himalayan region and the Western Ghats is resulting in ill-conceived planning, unplanned development, and ultimately slope instability.

EXTREME WEATHER

• Severe, unpredictable weather events such as heavy, intense rainfall due to the climate crisis are adding another layer of complexity to landslide incidents in the country.
• Of the total landslides triggered by rainfall, 16% were reported from India. Of these, 77% occurred during the monsoon.

NDMA’S GUIDELINES FOR LANDSLIDE AND SNOW AVALANCHES DISASTER MANAGEMENT (2009) AND NATIONAL LANDSLIDE RISK

MANAGEMENT STRATEGY (2019)

LANDSLIDE HAZARD, VULNERABILITY, AND RISK ASSESSMENT

• It includes delineating areas susceptible to landslide hazards and the status of landslide hazards in different areas and to assess the resources at risk due to these hazards as per the requirement of communities and for planning and decision-making purposes.
• This also involves site-specific studies of landslides and preparation of landslide inventory.

MULTI-HAZARD CONCEPTUALISATION

• Integrating landslide concerns into multi-hazard disaster management plans at different levels for effective risk assessment, mitigation and response.

LANDSLIDE REMEDIATION PRACTICE

• Encouraging implementation of successful landslide remediation and mitigation technologies, and execution of pacesetter examples in mitigation and remediation strategies to build confidence amongst the affected communities.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT; MONITORING AND EARLY WARNING

• Research is of critical importance in managing landslides. Developing a predictive understanding of landslide processes and triggering mechanisms; regional real-time landslide warning systems based on threshold values of rainfall; real-time monitoring and establishing early warning systems are some of the important fields of research that need immediate attention.

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK AND MANAGEMENT

• Establishing an effective system for gathering information on landslides, loss assessment resulting from landslides, and the effective dissemination of technical information and maps is an essential component of the disaster management process.

PUBLIC AWARENESS AND EDUCATION

• Effective communication of landslide hazard issues to the affected communities through education, public awareness programmes, posters, audio-visual aids, media campaigns, etc., is required.

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE

• Development of coordinated landslide rapid response capability involving scientists, engineers, local authorities, the National Disaster Response Force, and paramilitary forces. Rescue, relief, and rehabilitation are covered in this component.

WAY FORWARD: LANDSLIDE-PRONE AREAS NEED TECH SUPPORT

HOW MAPPING LANDSLIDES CAN MINIMISE DAMAGE

• Improvement in early warning systems, monitoring, and susceptibility zoning can reduce the damage caused by landslides.
• The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has done a national landslide susceptibility mapping at 1:50,000 scale for 85% of the entire 420,000 square km landslide-prone area in the country.
• This would not only help avoid many new landslides that are caused heavily by human interventions but also reduce damages to life and property if an incident happens.
• The maps need to be localized to give a more magnified view of the locality to be more useful. This would help to build plans and local construction activities.

PLANNING AHEAD

• Aizawl Municipal Corporation (AMC) has developed a landslide action plan using 1:5,000 scale susceptibility maps and new regulations to guide construction activities.
• It has set up a landslide policy committee involving stakeholders from various departments and researchers to prepare a long-term safety plan.
• After years of facing tragedies, Kerala is also trying to ensure disaster-resilient development in its hilly regions. The ‘Rebuild Kerala’ action plan has given high priority to the preparation of landslide hazard zonation maps in hilly areas at the municipality and panchayat levels.
• NHAI while building roads took remedial measures such as concreting with wire mesh and rock bolting, use of rockfall nets, concrete cladding, and proper diversion of surface runoff through catch drains, chutes and toe drains on berms, etc. It provides stability to the slopes.

MONITORING FOR EARLY WARNING

• Local geographical indicators offer warning signs for landslides.
• New cracks, unusual bulges and depressions in the ground; tilting trees, telecom poles or retaining walls; soil moving away from foundations; and sudden increase in water flow in streams with more mud, or decrease in flow when it is still raining or rainfall has recently stopped, can signal landslides.
• Rainfall is a key indicator. The GSI started an experiment in Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) in Darjeeling (West Bengal) and the Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu), which could be expanded to other landslide-prone states if it proves successful. The model is based on rainfall threshold, which is the amount of rainfall a slope can hold before a landslide gets triggered, which is estimated using past cumulative rainfall data combined with landslide susceptibility data.
• Some experiments are also going on to monitor landslides through movement sensors and rain gauges. These systems alert the officials and scientists through SMS or emails once a threshold value is reached. Coimbatore-based Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, for instance, has set up real-time landslide monitoring and early warning systems in Munnar (Kerala) and Gangtok (Sikkim).
• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi, has also installed surface-level motion-sensor-based early warning systems in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The device collects weather parameters, soil moisture, soil movement, and rainfall intensities. When the device detects a significant displacement of the earth which could result in a landslide, it alerts the officials.

SWISS MODEL

• Prof.Madhav Gadgil who headed the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) suggested ‘Swiss Model’ is the solution to prevent landslides in the Western Ghats

ü  The extensive forest cover of Switzerland has developed only over the last 160 years.

ü  Before that, only about 4% of that country’s lands had retained forest and there were disastrous landslides.

ü  This led to a public awakening and a restoration of the tree cover.

ü  This regeneration was managed by local communities, not by government departments.

ü  Working together, communities of Switzerland, practicing genuine participatory democracy, have revived the country’s ecology.

CONCLUSION: There is a cost to pursuing development goals without paying attention to environmental constraints. Therefore, development goals must be pursued without breaching environmental regulations. Recent devastating landslides signal the dire need for ramping up disaster alert systems while enhancing climate change mitigation efforts.

THE CONTEXT: Recently, torrential rains that took place in Hyderabad have caused massive urban floods. In many Indian cities, the urban floods have become a frequent phenomenon in recent years.The scale of destruction has been unprecedented. This experience is not unique to the city of Hyderabad but something that cities across India have been experiencing in recent years. This article discusses about the urban flooding, causes, impacts and the possible solutions.

WHAT IS URBAN FLOODING?

Flooding in urban areas can be caused by flash floods, or coastal floods, or river floods, but there is also a specific flood type that is called urban flooding. It is different from normal floods, because

• Urban flooding is specific in the fact that the cause is a lack of drainage in an urban area. As there is little open soil that can be used for water storage nearly all the precipitation needs to be transport to surface water or the sewage system.
• High intensity rainfall can cause flooding when the city sewage system and draining canals do not have the necessary capacity to drain away the amounts of rain that are falling.
• Overburdened drainage, frenzied and unregulated construction, no regard to the natural topography and hydro-geomorphology all make urban floods a man-made disaster.

CAUSES

Natural causes

• Meteorological Factors- Heavy rainfall, cyclonic storms and thunderstorms causes water to flow quickly through paved urban areas and impound in low lying areas.
• Hydrological Factors- Overbank flow channel networks, occurrence of high tides impeding the drainage in coastal cities.
• Climate Change- Climate change due to various anthropogenic events has led to extreme weather events.

The rainfall received in Hyderabad in 2020 has been the highest for the month of October in a century.

Anthropological causes

• Unplanned Urbanization is the key cause of urban flooding. A major concern is blocking of natural drainage pathways through construction activity and encroachment on catchment areas, riverbeds and lake beds.
• Destruction of lakes is a major issue in India cities. Lakes can store the excess water and regulate the flow of water.
• Pollution of natural urban water bodies and converting them for development purposes has increased risk of floods.

Poor and old drainage system

Cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai rely on a century-old drainage system, covering only a small part of the core city.

• In the last 20 years, the Indian cities have grown manifold with its original built-up area.
• As the city grew beyond its original limits, not much was done to address the absence of adequate drainage systems.
• Inability to manage the city’s drainage systems is an another cause of urban flooding.

Incremental land use change

• Neglecting issues of incremental land use change, particularly of those commons which provide us with necessary ecological support — wetlands.
• This has led to creation of urban terrain which is incapable of absorbing, holding and discharging water.
• The number of wetlands has reduced to 123 in 2018 from 644 in 1956.
• Green cover is only 9 per cent, which ideally should have been at least 33 per cent.

Overlooking environmental regulations

Overlooking environmental regulations in mega-projects is fairly common in the country.

• Commonwealth Games Village (CWG) were built right on the Yamuna’s floodplain.
• The secondary runway of Chennai International Airport was also built right over the Adyar river. Most of the airport was constructed on the riverine floodplains, leading to massive flooding during the 2015 Chennai floods.
• Recent developments such as Andhra Pradesh’s Amaravati Capital City Project, had major areas proposed to be built on the floodplains of Krishna river.

IMPACTS OF URBAN FLOODS

• Economy- Damage to infrastructure, roads and settlements, industrial production, basic supplies, post disaster rehabilitation difficulties etc.
• Human population and wildlife– Trauma, loss of life, injuries and disease outbreak, unhygienic living conditions in slums, contamination of water etc.
• Environment- Loss of habitat, tree and forest cover, biodiversity loss and large scale greenery recovery failure.
• Transport and communication– Increased traffic congestion, disruption in rail services, disruption in communication- on telephone, internet cables causing massive public inconvenience.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

Holistic engagement

• Floods needs to be managed with concerted and focused investments of energy and resources.
• The Metropolitan Development Authorities, National Disaster Management Authority, State revenue and irrigation departments along with municipal corporations should be involved in such work together.
• Such investments can only be done in a mission mode organisation with active participation of civil society organisations at the metropolitan scale.

Developing Sponge Cities

• The idea of a sponge city is to make cities more permeable so as to hold and use the water which falls upon it.
• Sponge cities absorb the rain water, which is then naturally filtered by the soil and allowed to reach urban aquifers.
• This allows for the extraction of water from the ground through urban or peri-urban wells.
• This water can be treated easily and used for city water supply.

Wetland Policy

There is a need to start paying attention to the management of wetlands by involving local communities.

• Terrain alteration needs to be strictly regulated and a ban on any further alteration of terrain needs to be introduced.
• To improve the city’s capacity to absorb water, new porous materials and technologies must be encouraged or mandated across scales.
• Examples of these technologies are bio-swales and retention systems, permeable material for roads and pavement, drainage systems which allow storm water to trickle into the ground, green roofs and harvesting systems in buildings.

EIAs and enforcement will remain vital to ensure that fragile wetlands and floodplains are not concretised.

Drainage planning

• Watershed management and emergency drainage plan should be clearly enunciated in policy and law.
• Urban watersheds are micro ecological drainage systems, shaped by contours of terrain.
• Detailed documentation of these Urban watersheds must be held by agencies where natural boundaries instead of governance boundaries (like wards) are used to come up with drainage plan.

Water sensitive urban design

• Methods should be adopted which takes into consideration the topography, types of surfaces (permeable or impervious), natural drainage and leave very less impact on the environment.
• Vulnerability analyses and risk assessments should form part and parcel of city master plans.
• In a changing climate, the drainage infrastructure (especially storm water drainage) has to be built considering the new ‘normals’.
• Tools such as predictive precipitation modelling can help do that and are also able to link it with the adaptive capacity of urban land use.

These can all be delivered effectively through an urban mission along the lines of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) and Smart Cities Mission.

CONCLUSION: Urban Flood management will not just help control recurring floods but also respond to other fault lines, provide for water security, more green spaces, and will make the city resilient and sustainable. We need to urgently rebuild our cities such that they have the sponginess to absorb and release water without causing so much misery and so much damage to the most vulnerable of our citizens

CASE STUDIES OF URBAN FLOODING

1. HYDERABAD FLOODS

Urban flooding has become a common occurrence these days in India. The latest victim of urban flooding is Hyderabad.

Basic information-The city as well Telangana received unusually excessive rainfall October 13-14, 2020, due to a deep depression that developed in the Bay of Bengal. Heavy damage to property, roads and human lives has been reported.

The population of the city has grown exponentially. It is 10 million today.

Geographical setting- Hyderabad is located on the banks of the Musi river. The Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar dams on the river, supply the water to the city.

Based on hydrology, present-day Hyderabad can be divided into Krishna and Godavari basins. Traditionally, all the rainwater falling in the catchment areas of Musi would discharge into Musi which is one of the 22 tributaries of the Krishna river. And newer localities to the west of Hyderabad, including Gachibowli and the IT corridor, are all in the catchment areas of the Godavari.In both Krishna and Godavari basins, the city has a network of lakes and drains which carry the excess water from one to another and then finally into the Musi and Majeera rivers.

Over the years, owing to the expansion of the city, the lakes were not in demand for their primary purposes of irrigation and drinking water. But they continued to be relevant for flood regulation.

Issue-The city of Hyderabad doesn’t usually get flooded due to monsoonal rain, which is spread over a long period. There is a natural system of flow of water from a high elevated area to a lower one. But Lakes in the town have shrunk due to encroachment. Discharge of sewage and industrial effluents, encroachments by government and private individuals, and decades of neglect had everyone thinking the river would never flow again. Most of the former waterways are open sewers now. But, on October 13, the river was in spate once again after a record downpour. Low-lying localities and colonies that were built on the lake beds and nullahs were submerged in no time. Many days later, hundreds of these colonies were still under water.

Large water bodies that existed for centuries have shrunk in size, encroachments have eaten into natural waterways, and stormwater drains get easily clogged.

Losses-As many as 33 lives have been lost to heavy rains and floods in the city, with the GHMC estimating that at least 37,409 families have been affected. The Municipal Administration minister pegged the city’s losses at Rs 670 crore.

2. MUMBAI FLOODS

Basic information-The 2005 Maharashtra floods impacted many parts of the Indian state of Maharashtra including large areas of the metropolis Mumbai, a city located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, on the Western coast of India. The floods were caused by the eighth heaviest-ever recorded 24-hour rainfall figure of 944 mm (37.17 inches) which lashed the metropolis on 26 July 2005, and intermittently continued for the next day.

Approximately 1,094 people died and city of Mumbai came to a standstill due to flooding.

Issues

• The present storm-water drainage system in Mumbai was put in place in the early 20th century and is capable of carrying only 25.1237 millimetres of water per hour which was extremely inadequate on a day when 993 mm of rain fell in the city. The drainage system was also clogged at several places.
• Haphazard Development- Development in certain parts of Mumbai is haphazard and buildings are constructed without proper planning. The drainage plans in northern suburbs is chalked out as and when required in a particular area and not from an overall point of view.
• Destruction of mangrove ecosystems- Mangrove ecosystems which exist along the Mithi River and Mahim Creek are being destroyed and replaced with construction. These ecosystems serve as a buffer between land and sea.
• Sewage and garbage dumps have also destroyed mangroves. The Bandra-Kurla complex in particular was created by replacing such swamps. The most acclaimed Mindspace CBD (INORBIT MALL) in Goregaon & Malad has been built by destroying a large patch of mangroves in Maharashtra.

3. CHENNAI FLOODS

Basic information-Chennai received 1,049 mm (41.3 in) of rainfall in November, the highest recorded since November 1918 when 1,088 mm (42.8 in) in of rainfall was recorded. On 1 December, heavy rains led to inundation in many areas of Chennai.

Chennai is built on flat coastal floodplains. Wetlands – including natural and artificial drains are the city’s insurance against heavy rains and cyclonic storm surges.

Issues-A study revealed how the city’s built-up area grew nine-fold – from 47 sq km in 1980 to 402 sq km in 2012 – even while area under wetlands declined from 186 sq km to 71 sq km during the same period. Between 1996 and 2015, more than 1,000 acres of this wetland was allegedly illegally diverted to accommodate industrial installations belonging to state-owned companies, including a large port and several coal-fired power plants.

The 2015 rains crippled the neighbourhoods drained by the creek. Some went under because power plants, coal ash ponds and coal yards blocked the flowing run-off from their habitations to the creek. Others were harmed by waters backing up far inland because their natural holding area – the backwaters – had been eaten into. The floods brought the refinery to a halt.

A parliamentary committee that enquired into the cause of the 2015 floods was categorical in its report that “encroachment of lakes and riverbeds played a major role in causing massive floods in Chennai”.

Impact-Power supplies were suspended to 60% of the city while several city hospitals stopped functioning. The Southern Railways cancelled major train services and Chennai International Airport was closed until 6 December.

THE CONTEXT: The ever-growing mechanisation, electrification, chemicalisation and sophistication have made industrial jobs more and more complex and intricate leading to increased dangers to human life in industries through accidents and injuries. In fact, the same underline the need for and importance of industrial safety. This article discusses about the industrial disaster related problems, measures and possible solutions.

DEFINING INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT

• An industrial accident may be defined as “an occurrence which interrupts or interferes with the orderly progress of work in an industrial establishment.
• According to the Factories Act of 1948, it is “an occurrence in an industrial establishment causing bodily injury to a person which makes him unfit to resume his duties in the next 48 hours.

In other words, it is an unexpected event which is neither anticipated nor designed to occur. It is always sudden, for a gradual process does not constitute an accident.

SOME MAJOR INCIDENTS

• Bhopal Gas Tragedy, 1984
• A chlorine gas leak at Jamshedpur (2008),
• A fire at an Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) platform at Bombay High (2005),
• A toluene fire at a Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd factory in Mohali (2003),
• A chlorine gas leak in Vadodara (2002) that affected 250 people.
• Ammonia gas leaked at Oswal Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd at Paradip, Odisha, in 1999 during a supercyclone,
• An earthquake damaged a phosphoric acid sludge containment at Bhuj, Gujarat, in 2001.

Recent incidents

• On 20th August 2020, a major fire broke out in late night hours, in an underground hydroelectric power plant in Srisailam in the state of Telangana. The fire blaze killed 9 people, including 5 engineers.
• On 7th May 2020, a gas leak from the LG Polymers plant in Visakhapatnam, which was operating without environmental clearance for over two decades, killed 12 people and sickened hundreds.

ISSUES RELATED TO THE INDUSTRIAL DISASTERS

Less attention

• Since May 2020, there have been 30 industrial accidents in India, killing at least 75 workers, according to IndustriALL, a global union of workers.
• From 2014 to 2017, 8,004 such incidents occurred in Indian workplaces killing 6,368 employees.
• Most such incidents took place in Delhi, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

Industrial reforms v/s Industrial safety

• The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has identified about 400 plus reforms, some of which have an adverse impact on industrial safety.
• The government, as part of these reforms, is dismantling the inspection system which overlooked regulations to a self-certification system or third-party certification.

Issue of decommissioning

• There is no proper mechanism for decommissioning of power plants for example the atomic power plants which have completed their lifespan of 30-40 years have still not been decommissioned.
• Even the Nuclear Liability Act is inadequate to deal with such disasters.

Inadequate compensation

• Inadequate compensation policy for example the inadequacy of the compensation under the PLI Act, which is the only legislation we have for compensating victims of tragedies such as Bhopal and Vizag, is best highlighted by the amount offered which was too less.

MEASURES TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT

• 1948-Draft regulations on the control of, major accident hazards were first prepared as model rules that were then notified to the states under the Factories Act of 1948.
• 1987 amendment-One important change that followed Bhopal and the oleum gas leak case came in 1987, when the Factories Act, 1948, was amended to extend the scope of risk from such industries. What used to be a narrowly defined scope covering only workers and the premises of the factory was extended to the general public in the vicinity of the factory.
• 1989-The Ministry of Environment and Forests included the rules as the ‘Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 1989’ under the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 which detail and catalogue chemicals deemed “hazardous” entering the country, the port of entry and the quantity imported.
• The Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991, which is an insurance meant to provide relief to persons affected by accidents that occur while handling hazardous substances.
• The Chemical Accidents (Emergency Planning, Preparedness, and Response) Rules, 1996, which address gas leaks and similar events.
• Chemical Accidents (Emergency, Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules, 1996: Centre is required to constitute a central crisis group for management of chemical accidents; set up quick response mechanism termed as the crisis alert system. Each state is required to set up a crisis group and report on its work.
• The Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, fix responsibility on those who have control over a facility dealing with such hazardous substances, and those who import, handle or transport such waste, making them “liable for all damages caused to the environment or third party” as well as payment of “financial penalties”.
• The National Green Tribunal (NGT),which was set up by an Act of Parliament in 2010 for the Public Liability Insurance Act would provide interim relief and that the tribunal would determine the final compensation. The Act also provides for the “principle of no fault liability”, which means that the company can be held liable even if it had done everything in its power to prevent the accident.
• Factory Advice Service and Labour Institute– The Government has set up Factory Advice Service and Labour Institute, Bombay, which functions as an integral body to advise Government, industry and other interests concerned with matters relating to safety, health and welfare of factory workers.
• National Program for Co-ordinated Action Plan – The Government has drawn up a “National Program for Co-ordinated Action Plan” for control of hazards, and protection of occupational health and safety workers in dangerous manufacturing processes. The Action Plan lists out the responsibilities of the Government, management and workers’ organisations in the field of safety and health in work environment, and includes ‘Model Scheme for setting up Full Safety Control System Cell’ in hazardous industries and ‘Safety and Health Accidents Reduction Action Plan’ (SAHARA) in all industries.
• National Safety Council– National Safety Council was set up in 1966 to promote safety consciousness among workers to prevent accidents, minimise dangers and mitigate human sufferings, conduct programs, lectures and conferences safety.
• National Safety Awards– To give recognition to good safety performance on the part of industrial undertakings and to stimulate and maintain the interest of both the managements and the workers in accident prevention programs, the Central Government instituted in 1965 the National Safety Awards.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

Some of the steps for ensuring safety and preventing industrial disasters are:

Intervention at the Managerial Level

• Management should assess the overall workplace safety aspects and possible threats or hazards.
• Drafting safety policy according to the assessment of the possible threats. Safety policy implementation & follow-up should be taken on a regular basis.
• Safety Training & drills on a periodic basis.
• Workload assessment and Equipment and maintenance audit on regular basis for the proper assessment of hazards.

Technological Interventions

The technological interventions refer to technology-audit and ensuring that better technologies are used and employed in the organizations that enhance safety aspects.

• Design and construction of plant and workplace should be safe.
• Arrangement of machinery equipment and material should be such as to eliminate risk of accident.
• Machines and equipments should be kept in good working conditions.
• Good working environment free from noise, pollution, and other environmental hazards should be ensured.
• Use of fire-retardant materials in construction, dual exits, easy vertical escape routes using staircases and alarm systems should be the part of safety codes.

Training and Placement Side

• Great cares should be taken while selecting persons for the jobs only skilled persons should be selected to handle machinery and equipment.
• Workers should be given proper in plant training and education regarding safety and use of safety devices.

Behavioural Interventions

• Making safety at workplace a way of life rather than a periodic inspection issue is the real challenge.
• Safety should become everyone’s agenda rather than being an enforcement issue.
• Zero tolerance for any unsafe practice or unsafe act, zero procrastination of safety aspects, prioritizing safety over everything are some of the desired behaviour from employees especially from managers.

Government interventions

• Once government allows setting up a factory manufacturing hazardous substances or is otherwise hazardous, it is essential for government to ensure an adequate buffer zone and not permit people to stay around in that zone or allow any business shops or constructions therein.
• The central crisis group is required to constantly monitor post-accident situations, conduct analyses of these accidents and suggest preventive steps to avoid recurrence.
• Effective monitoring and regular follow up of safety measures.

ACCOUNTABILITY NEED TO BE FIXED

• After the Bhopal gas tragedy the judiciary evolved what came to be called the Doctrine of Absolute Responsibility in a case of oleum gas leak from a Delhi Cloths Mill factory.
• In a public interest litigation (1986) a five-judge bench of the apex court defined “absolute liability” as an enterprise which is engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous industry which poses a potential threat to the health and safety of the persons working in the factory and residing in the surrounding areas owes an absolute and non-delegable duty to the community to ensure that no harm results to anyone on account of hazardous or inherently dangerous nature of the activity which it has undertaken,”
• In the judgement court also said that compensation needs to have a “deterrent effect” and must be reflect the “magnitude and capacity of the enterprise”. The larger and more prosperous the enterprise, the greater must be the amount of compensation payable by it, the court said.
• Accountability of local administration is also need to be fixed as the administration is responsible for safety measures is being taken or not by the enterprise.

WAY FORWARD

• There are so many rules and regulations related to industrial disasters but the questions arises as to what extent are these laws relevant today? Have they been effectively used? Or is there a need for a more comprehensive law?
• Major risks are recognized, but preventive laws are generally inadequate to cope with hazards and emergencies. The enforcement efforts of the governmental agencies concerned with the protection of workers, the public, and the environment need to be properly coordinated.
• With industrialisation and a growing number of industries using hazardous substances, our legislative framework is no longer in sync with the changing times.

CONCLUSION: In this era of competition, market volatility and uncertainty there may be sometimes a tendency to cut-corners when it comes to safety issues. No such steps must be permitted that endangers lives of the employees or of any other member of the society due to operations of an organization.

THE CONTEXT: The spike in recent years in extreme calamities, topped by the Covid outbreak, spotlights the urgency of better disaster preparedness in Indian states and the Centre. Health pandemics like Covid and climate hazards like the Uttarakhand floods or Delhi heat waves have differing origins, but they spotlight common gaps in readiness. With extreme health and climate disasters set to continue, these events must be seen as regular occurrences rather than one-off acts of nature. Ranked by HSBC as the most vulnerable to climate change among 67 nations, India needs to make a paradigm shift to prioritize preparedness and not just recovery. This preparedness plan must be tailor made to the unique requirements of the states.

WHAT IS A DISASTER?

• As per Disaster Management Act, 2005 disaster is defined as “A catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade causes, or by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of property, or damage to, or degradation of environment and is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area.”
• The United Nations defines disaster as “the occurrence of sudden or major misfortune which disrupts the basic fabric and normal functioning of the society or community”.

UNDERSTANDING DISASTER MANAGEMENT

• As per Disaster Management Act, 2005, “disaster management” means a continuous and integrated process of planning, organising, coordinating and implementing measures to deal with disasters.
• In other words, Disaster Management is the organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters.
• Disaster management includes administrative decisions and operational activities that involve Prevention · Mitigation · Preparedness · Response · Recovery · Rehabilitation
• Key Phases of Disaster Management There are three key phases of activity within disaster management:

1. Pre – Disaster: Before a disaster to reduce the potential for human, material or environmental losses caused by hazards and to ensure that these losses are minimized when the disaster actually strikes.
2. During Disaster: It is to ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met to alleviate and minimize suffering.
3. Post Disaster: After a disaster to achieve rapid and durable recovery which does not reproduce the original vulnerable conditions

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: CONCEPT

• The focus of this write up is on the necessity of state specific Pre disaster preparedness/readiness plans.
• Hitherto, the approach towards coping with the effects of natural disasters has been post disaster management, limited to problems such as law and order, evacuation and warnings, communications, search and rescue, fire-fighting, medical and psychiatric assistance, provision of relief and sheltering, etc
• It is not possible to do away with the devastation of natural hazards completely. However, experience has shown that destruction from natural hazards can be minimised by a well-functioning warning system, combined with preparedness on the part of the vulnerable community.
• Warning systems and preparedness measures reduce/ modify the scale of disasters
• It is becoming increasingly evident now that a relatively smaller investment in disaster preparedness can save thousands of lives and vital economic assets, as well as reduce the cost of overall relief assistance.
• This preparedness process embraces measures that enables governments, communities and individuals to respond rapidly to disaster situations to cope with them effectively.
• Preparedness includes for example, the formulation of viable emergency plans, the development of warning systems, the maintenance of inventories, public awareness and education and the training of personnel.
• It may also embrace search and rescue measures as well as evacuation plans for areas that may be „at risk‟ from a recurring disaster.
• All preparedness planning needs to be supported by appropriate rules and regulations with clear all allocation of responsibilities and budgetary provision.
• According to Sendai Framework (2015-2030), one of the priorities of action is enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response.

BENEFITS OF DISASTER PREPAREDNESS PLANS: CASE STUDY FROM STATES

STATE

MEASURES TAKEN

KERALA

• Kerala stands out for its handling of recent catastrophes.
• Despite high levels of recorded infection rates, Kerala has a 0.3% death rate from Covid, the same as Singapore’s, which has the world’s lowest death rate.
• Early detection, swift isolation and speedy contact-tracing have been responsible.
• The use of frugal innovative methods as platforms for decision-making has been effective, as has been Kerala’s oxygen management, direct procurement of vaccines and a policy of zero vaccine wastage.
• The state has effectively used the E-E Sanjeevani telemedicine portal, offering psycho-social support for the sick.
• The needs of frontline workers, the elderly living alone and of migrant labourers—challenges in other Indian states too—have been a priority for Kerala’s government.

ODISHA

• Odisha has a great community outreach system through which people are being reached on time.
• It now has a network of 450 cyclone shelters and there is a robust mechanism for the maintenance of the cyclone shelters—each cyclone shelter has a maintenance committee where youth have been involved and trained for search and rescue, first aid medical attention, and for providing cyclone warnings.
• Through a network of these shelters and committees and training, the state has involved the entire community; it is now fairly easy to disseminate warnings and move people into safe cyclone shelters.
• The state’s disaster management systems are monitored twice each year, given the propensity of natural disasters in the state.
• This is not the first time that a poor state like Odisha has managed to successfully evacuate millions of people during a natural disaster; it also did so during Cyclone Phailin in 2013.
• Odisha has managed to create a sense of community during such disasters that other states can also emulate.
• This disaster readiness was evident when Cyclone Fani hit Odisha in May 2021.
• The Odisha government showed a high degree of preparedness and effectively managed to evacuate about 1.2 million people based on these predictions.
• The government of Odisha successfully managed to minimize the loss of life; this itself was not a small exercise and required tremendous effort.

WHY INDIA NEEDS STATE SPECIFIC DISASTER PREPAREDNESS PLANS?

REASON

EXPLANATION

LEGAL REQUIREMENT

• According to Section 23 of DMA Act, there shall be a plan for disaster management for every State called as State Disaster Management Plan.

SPECIFIC VULNERABILITIES

• Vulnerability is the inability to resist a hazard or to respond when a disaster has occurred. For instance, people who live on plains are more vulnerable to floods than people who live higher up. The vulnerability of states and the different parts of the State vary to different forms of disasters. For instance, coastal areas are vulnerable to cyclones while mountain regions to landslides.

ADMINISTRATIVE SET UP

• The administrative arrangements in the states differ on multiple counts. For instance, the number of departments, the human, physical, financial resources available, their roles and responsibilities etc vary considerably. Thus a specific disaster preparedness plans can account for these diverse factors.

DISASTER RISK ASSESSMENT AND REDUCTION

• India has a Protocol for Disaster Risk Assessment and Reduction, based on composite methods of states and the experience of the National Disaster Management Authority in disaster management. But a vast gap remains from the parts of states in implementing vital investments in infrastructure, education and health needed for disaster mitigation.

SUCCESS STORIES

• The Kerala and Odisha success stories provide a strong and compelling case for tailor made state disaster preparedness plans to be formulated by other states.

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP

• In Gorakhpur, local communities are using nature-based solutions to build resilience against frequent floods. Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group has come up with climate resilient methods for vulnerable communities. For example, farmers switched from mono-cropping to rotating multiple crops to improve soil health and drainage. Several adopted organic practices, which reduce harmful run-off in nearby rivers. A weather advisory group helps farmers use a text message-based early warning system to schedule irrigation and harvesting.

CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGES

• Climate change can increase disaster risk in a variety of ways – by altering the frequency and intensity of hazard events, affecting vulnerability to hazards, and changing exposure patterns. Climate change is already modifying the frequency and intensity of many weather-related hazards as well as steadily increasing the vulnerability and eroding the resilience of exposed populations that depend arable land, access to water, and stable mean temperatures and rainfall. States face unique challenges of climate change related disasters.

CAPACITY BUILDING

• The resource endowments of states in India vary considerably. For instance, State investments in health differ enormously. Kerala’s per capita public health expenditure, for example, is about twice that of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Thus, states’ preparedness plans can provide for a streamlined strategy for acquisition, organisation, training and coordination of all relevant stakeholders.

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS IN STATE DISASTER PREPAREDNESS?

The problem areas in preparedness are organisational and planning related issues, like inadequate policy direction, outdated plans and over concentration on recovery and response activities, which leads to low preparedness.

Lack of resources or resource organisations and unclear allocation of these resources is also likely to create gaps or overlaps in the preparedness arrangements.

Other problems like inadequate coordination and lack of cooperation at the policy making and implementation level, public awareness and suitable training for the disaster managers usually contribute significantly to poor disaster preparedness activities. The problems in state disaster preparedness are summarized below

FRAGILE INSTITUTIONS

• Disaster Management Act 2005, provides for institutional mechanisms like, State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs), District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs).  However, in many cases, these institutions are not active and operational except a few exceptions.
•  Recently, In its performance audit report on the disaster management mechanism in the country, submitted to Parliament, CAG had highlighted that the Uttarakhand disaster management authority (SDMA), constituted in 2007, had not formulated any rules, regulations, policies or guidelines for disaster management in the state.
• One of the major reasons why the Uttarakhand government was unable to contain the scale of the devastation that has taken place in the state because of flash floods was its lack of preparedness to deal with such disasters.
• The Second wave of Corona pandemic saw a near total collapse of health systems in the States. The total lack of disaster preparedness despite warnings has proved very costly in terms of human lives.

POOR  COMPLIANCE OF POLICIES

• Even though the Disaster Management Act 2005 stipulated the setting up of the Disaster Response Fund and the Disaster Mitigation Fund at national, state and district levels, only the National and State Disaster Response Funds have become operational till now.
• The increasing frequency and damage to property, assets and infrastructure caused by recurring disasters makes it imperative that the provisions of the Disaster Management Act 2005 are enforced in letter and spirit

HAZARD RISK AND VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENTS

• Identifying the characteristics, frequency and potential severity of the hazards a community faces are crucial. Also it is vital to Identify the particular geographical areas and communities that are most susceptible and vulnerable to those hazards and to anticipate how they might be affected. Every state’s hazard risk and vulnerability profile is unique.

PREPAREDNESS PLANNING

• Disaster preparedness planning involves identifying organisational resources, determining roles and responsibilities, developing policies and procedures and planning preparedness activities aimed at ensuring timely disaster preparation and effective emergency response. However, the preparedness planning of the states, wherever they exist, have been largely affected by adhocism, duplication and overlapping of roles, and poor policy coherence.

COORDINATION

•  Coordination between Various levels of governments, agencies and departments, civil defence,  fire brigades, health departments and clinics, international agencies, NGOs and others etc are very important. The poor state of coordination has been visible when the oxygen crisis in the National Capital lead to death of scores of Covid positive patients for want of timely supply of oxygen. A visibly angry Supreme Court had to intervene to remedy the situation by setting up a National Task Force on medical oxygen allocation.

PUBLIC EDUCATION, TRAINING AND REHEARSALS.

• Public education campaigns, training of response teams and rehearsals of emergency response scenarios must be an integral part of state’s disaster preparedness. Hardly any concrete steps being taken by the states to mainstream this aspect in its governance process. An example to be emulated is that of Kerala. In order to assess the preparedness of the district in mitigating the impact of monsoon -related calamities, the district administration conducted a mock drill in line with the action plan of the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA).
• It  tested  the efficiency of the rescue operations and relief activities in case of a major landslide in the high ranges and the consequent rush of floodwaters

COMMUNITY BASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

• Local populations in disaster-stricken areas are the first to respond to a disaster.
• They also have keen awareness of unique challenges of the area in terms of vulnerability etc.
• They are usually involved in search and rescue activities as well as in providing emergency treatment and relief to their families, friends and neighbours. Thus, making community a vital part of disaster preparedness rather than seeing them as ‘victims of disaster who must be helped” should be on the agenda of disaster readiness planning.

WHAT MUST BE DONE?

• In dealing with covid, local efforts have also played a critical role, be it citizens’ responses in such cities as Delhi, Guwahati and Jaipur, or those of gram panchayats in rural areas.
• But across the country, covid has revealed glaring gaps in health systems, and, in many instances, poor governance and often a lack of trust in governments.
• In Australia, following its deadly bushfires of 2018 and 2019, Insurance Australia Group recommended that government funding prioritize risk reduction, lessening the need for spending on disaster recovery. To aid in better preparedness, the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index now assesses the risk profiles and resilience of communities faced with bushfires.
• In a similar vein, an audit of how the central and state governments have handled covid will offer valuable lessons that can guide them to upgrade hospitals, increase medical inventories and create/update crisis response plans, for example.
• Every state should conduct a ‘stress test’ of how well it can cope in the event of even more frequent and intense calamities. These results should be published transparently
• In India, it would pay to establish inter-state pooling of technical capabilities, supplies and staff power to manage deficits and gaps.
• The overarching lesson for the Indian states and the Centre is to make more and better investments in health, education and social safety nets.
• Local initiatives will continue to aid disaster preparedness, but governments must act in anticipation of emerging calamities rather than scramble to respond after they strike.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCe: SINGAPORE

Bloomberg ranks Singapore highest in Covid resilience, based on fatality rates, test rates and vaccination rates. Drawing on its experience with Sars and Influenza A, the Singapore government has prioritized disaster preparedness in its investments. One indication of this priority is that the government has built up digital infrastructure and engineering capabilities that can be deployed before, during and after calamities strike. For example, tools for contact tracing, like Safe Entry and Trace Together, are enabling Singapore to respond swiftly to the spread of Covid. A suite of digital tools is helping disseminate information and enabling government agencies to better coordinate and manage the crisis.

THE WAY FORWARD

• Section 10 and 11 of the DM Act 2005 provides for a national plan to be formulated under the direction of the NDMA to deal with However, the Central Government and the NDMA has not formulated it despite the ravages of the pandemic. This has set a poor example for states’ covid/disaster preparedness. Leadership role by the Union can nudge and inspire the states to be proactive in disaster readiness.
• The Fifteenth Finance Commission in its first report covering the financial year 2020-21 has recommended 10 percent of the SDRF allocation  for Preparedness and Capacity-building. The states must utilise this fund for conceiving and operationalizing and upgrading the whole gamut of disaster readiness.
• The Second Administrative Reforms Commission, in its report on “Crisis Management” made a strong pitch for enhanced role of local self-governments in entire disaster management cycle with special focus on pre disaster stage and preparedness. States must empower and build local bodies capacities in this regard.
• Excessive focus on Post disaster cycle that rely on relief, recovery, reconstruction etc have led to neglect of disaster preparedness. It is imperative for states to concentrate on equal measures and evaluate the preparedness at all governmental and non-governmental (schools, hospitals, business, NGOs etc) for the purpose of responding to any threatening disaster situation or disaster and give directions, where necessary, for enhancing such preparedness.

CONCLUSION: Disaster Preparedness” means the state of readiness to deal with a threatening disaster situation or disaster and their effects. It deals with measures to be taken for preparedness and capacity building to effectively respond to any threatening disaster situations or disaster. India’s unique geo climatic vulnerabilities and poor socio economic infrastructural base have made it quite vulnerable to disasters. The Covid pandemic has exposed the countries’ lack of preparedness for meeting the challenges. Although, almost all states bore the brunt of the Virus, some better prepared states could come out stronger. For instance, while Uttar Pradesh and Delhi reeled under oxygen shortage, Kerala was well prepared. This and other evidence makes a strong case for state specific disaster preparedness plans which can be a game changer in India’s disaster management strategy.

THE CONTEXT: Recently, in an unfortunate incident, an office of Haryana police was mowed down by a dumper as he was trying to stop illegal mining. His death again highlighted the issue of illegal mining in the country and started a debate about the same. In this article, we will analyze the issue in detail and will try to give way forward to stop such activities.

HOW DEEP THE ILLEGAL MINING IN INDIA

• Haryana officer murder is only the latest in a string of killings of activists, journalists, law enforcers and whistle-blowers trying to uncover the menace of illegal mining in India.
• Stones, coal, iron, and other minerals and more frequently, and are illegally mined in India. The murders are usually carried out by the mafia, which in turn, are connected to powerful political leaders.
• According to data collected by SANDRP — South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, five journalists/activists, 11 government officials, and 23 citizens/villages / farmers have been killed since January 2019 due to illegal sand mining in India.
• According to the last report of the National Crime Records Bureau released in 2020, 61,767 environment-related offences were committed in India.
• Of these, 199 offences related to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) were committed across the 29 states of the country. Maharashtra (33 offences), Meghalaya (93) and Uttar Pradesh (68) recorded the highest number of NGT-related offences.

Death toll in India due to illegal sand mining since January 2019 

WHY ILLEGAL MINING IN INDIA

India has grossly underestimated the issue of illegal mining, which damages the environment and causes revenue loss

• With the increase in the pace of development, the demand for minor minerals such as sand and gravel has crossed 60 million metric tons in India. This also makes it the second largest extractive industry on the planet, after water.
• However, while laws and monitoring have been made stringent for the mining of major minerals consequent to the unearthing of several related scams across the country, the fact is that rampant and illegal mining of minor minerals continues unabated.
• In many instances, one comes across gravel being removed from agricultural lands or fallow lands of the government near major highways or construction projects, as the contractor finds it easier and cheaper to do so even though the estimates for such work include the distance (called ‘lead’) to transport such gravel from authorised quarries.

Issue of regulation

• Unlike major minerals, the regulatory and administrative powers to frame rules, prescribe rates of royalty, mineral concessions, enforcement, etc., are entrusted exclusively to the State governments.
• The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notifications of 1994 and 2006 made environmental clearance compulsory for mining in areas more than or equal to five hectares.
• However, the Supreme Court of India, after taking cognisance of a report by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on Environmental Aspects of Quarrying of Minor Minerals (2010) directed all State governments to make the requisite changes in the regulatory framework of minor minerals, requiring environmental clearance for mining in areas less than five hectares.
• Consequently, the EIA was amended in 2016, which made environmental clearance mandatory for mining in areas less than five hectares, including minor minerals.
• The amendment also provided for the setting up of a District Environment Impact Assessment Authority (EIAA) and a District Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC).
• However, a State-wise review of EACs and EIAAs in key industrial States such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu shows that these authorities review over 50 project proposals in a day and the rejection rate at the State level has been a mere 1%.
• This raises a pertinent question on whether introducing clearances alone can help eliminate irregularities in the illegal mining of minor minerals. The situation now indicates that the problem is even more complex and widespread and that a robust technology-driven enforcement approach is required.

The problem has not been taken seriously

• The problem of illegal mining of minor minerals is often under-estimated, thus accentuating undesired environmental consequences. There have been numerous cases of the illegal mining of dolomite, marble and sand across the States. For example, in Andhra Pradesh’s Konanki limestone quarries alone, 28.92 lakh metric tonnes of limestone have been illegally quarried. However, the relentless pace of sand mining.

Apart from the above, there are many other reasons for such activities

• There is a lack of coordination within the Ministry of Environment and forests which led to illegalities and consequential ecological damage.
• There is also a lack of timely checks by the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM).
• The boundary markings of the leased-out area are not clearly defined.
• One of the reasons that illegal mining thrives is the lack of timely renewals for mining.
• The responsibility is on the mine owners, who do not apply in time, and also on the various regulatory authorities where the applications are not processed in time.

WHAT ARE THE OBSERVATIONS BY AGENCIES?

• The United Nations Environment Programme, in 2019, ranked India and China as the top two countries where illegal sand mining has led to sweeping environmental degradation. Despite this, there is no comprehensive assessment available to evaluate the scale of sand mining in India.
• Nevertheless, regional studies such as those by the Centre for Science and Environment of the Yamuna riverbed in Uttar Pradesh have observed that increasing demand for soil has severely affected soil formation and the soil holding ability of the land, leading to a loss in marine life, an increase in flood frequency, droughts, and also degradation of water quality.
• Such effects can also be seen in the beds of the Godavari, the Narmada and the Mahanadi basins. As has been pointed out in a study of the Narmada basin, sand mining has reduced the population of Mahseer fish from 76% between 1963 and 2015.

IMPACTS OF ILLEGAL MINING

• Economic loss to the state exchequer as there is no royalty to be paid.
• Excessive sand mining can alter the riverbed, force the river to change course, erode banks and lead to flooding. It also destroys the habitat of aquatic animals and micro-organisms, besides affecting groundwater recharge.
• Illegal mining activities were identified as the cause of environmental problems such as water pollution, deforestation, poor soil fertility and limited access to land for agriculture productivity.
• It is not just damaging to the environment. Illegal mining causes copious losses to the state exchequer.
• As per an estimate, U.P. is losing revenue from 70% of mining activities as only 30% area is legally mined.
• Similarly, the absence of royalty has caused a loss of ₹700 crore in Bihar, while non-payment of various cesses due to unregulated mining resulted in a loss of ₹100 crore to Karnataka and ₹600 crore to Madhya Pradesh in 2016-17.
• Aravalli and Western Ghat are the two examples of illegal mining:
• Aravalli Hills:Illegal mining in Aravalli hills is rampant because it has a rich reserve of copper, lead, zinc, rock phosphate, soapstone, silica sand, limestone, marble and gypsum.The water ecology has been changing due to the illegal mining activities. Although many lakes in the Aravalli hills skirting south Delhi may be disappearing, but some new water bodies are popping up in the region that has been ravaged by mining in recent years. These water bodies have filled the depressions left by mine contractors.
• Western Ghat: Reports indicate that at least 5,000 quarries, both legal and illegal, operate in the Western Ghats. It appears 60 percent of them are illegal. Some of them are run by politicians, a few them members of the Legislative assembly, or their friends and relatives.Heavy rains flooded river basins and its impact was compounded by reckless construction along riverbanks. Watersheds, ponds and farmlands were flattened for construction activities.

WHAT ARE THE JUDICIAL INTERVENTIONS, AND WHAT WAS THE STATE RESPONSE?

• Judicial orders are often neglected by State governments.
• For instance, as in the report of the Oversight Committee by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), Uttar Pradesh (where illegal sand mining has created a severe hazard) has either failed or only partially complied with orders issued regarding compensation for illegal sand mining. Such lax compliance can be seen in States such as West Bengal, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh too.
• A State-wide review of the reasons behind non-compliance suggests a malfunction of governance due to weak institutions, a scarcity of state resources to ensure enforcement, poorly drafted regulatory provisions, inadequate monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and excessive litigation that dampens state administrative capacity.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE WAY FORWARD?

• Protecting minor minerals requires investment in production and consumption measurement and also monitoring and planning tools. To this end, technology has to be used to provide a sustainable solution.
• Satellite imagery can be used to monitor the volume of extraction and also check the mining process. Even for past infractions, the NGT and administrative authorities can obtain satellite pictures for the past 10 to 15 years and uncontrovertibly show how small hillocks of earth, gravel or small stone dunes have disappeared in an area. Recently, the NGT directed some States to use satellite imagery to monitor the volume of sand extraction and transportation from the riverbeds. Well-planned execution of these directions increased revenue from minor minerals mining in all these States.
• Additionally, drones, the internet of things (IoT) and blockchain technology can be leveraged to monitor mechanisms by using the Global Positioning System, radar and Radio Frequency (RF) Locator. State governments such as Gujarat and judicial directions such as the High Court of Madras have employed some of these technologies to check illegal sand mining.
• The state governments and the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) should coordinate better to see that the mine production sums up with the mining plan.
• Protecting minor minerals requires investment in production and consumption measurement and also monitoring and planning tools.

THE CONCLUSION: Illegal mining has become a serious issue in India. The incidents related to illegal mining, like the death of officers and tragedies, are daily events. Apart from it, impacts on the environment and   Economic loss to the state exchequer are some other negatives of such activities. Government should come up with strong regulations to stop it, and technology should be used to monitor these activities.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Discuss how the use of technology can be a game changer in stopping illegal mining in India.

Why the issue of illegal mining persists in India? What should be the way forward to stop such activities?

THE CONTEXT: Recently, RBI released the report titled ‘State Finances: A Risk Analysis,’ in which the public finances of the 10 most heavily indebted states of India were analysed. This article intends to analyse the key findings of the report and further discuss the implications of unregulated state finances.

STATE BORROWINGS: THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

• Chapter II of Part XII of the Constitution of India deals with borrowing by the Central Government and State Governments.
• It comprises two provisions:
  • Article 292 covers borrowing by the Central Government, and Article 293, covers borrowing by State Governments.
  • Article 293 (3) requires State Governments that are indebted to the Central Government to seek the consent of the Central Government before raising further borrowings.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF THE REPORT

• According to the report, ten states have a significantly high debt burden. These include Punjab, Rajasthan, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. These ten states account for around half of the total expenditure by all State governments in India.
• According to the report, Punjab is anticipated to stay in the worst situation because of continuing worsening in its fiscal situation and a predicted debt-to-GSDP ratio that would reach 45% in 2026–2027. By 2026–2027, it is anticipated that Rajasthan, Kerala, and West Bengal will have debt-to-GSDP ratios higher than 35%. To stabilize their debt levels, these states will need to take major remedial action.
• The benchmarks for fiscal deficit and debt for the ten states established by the 15th Finance Commission were exceeded by Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Punjab.
• According to the RBI analysis, Rajasthan, Kerala, and West Bengal are expected to exceed the 15th Finance Commission targets for debt and fiscal deficit in 2022–2023 (BE).

DEBT-TO-GSDP RATIO

The measure used to compare a state’s public debt to its gross state domestic product is called the debt-to-GSDP ratio (GSDP). The debt-to-GSDP ratio accurately predicts a state’s capacity to repay its debts by contrasting what it owes with what it generates.

REASONS FOR EXCEEDING BORROWING LIMITS

IMPACTS OF THE PANDEMIC

• The pandemic dried up the revenue streams of all states due to the protracted lockdown and other containment measures, while expenditure went up due to the subsidies that had to be provided to the poor and the vulnerable to survive.
• As a result, almost all states ended up beaching the FRBM limit, with Bihar’s GFD: GSDP ratio reaching as much as 11.3 per cent, and those of Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh reaching 4.6, 5.2 and 4.3 per cent, respectively. This led to higher borrowing by states and a swelling of their debt ratios (debt as a percentage of GSDP) much above the safe limits.

ATTENUATING TAX BUOYANCY

• The own tax revenue of some of these states like Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala has been declining over time, making them fiscally more vulnerable.
• The Goods and Services tax implementation has been one of the prime causes for this mismatch of funds. For example, the revenue might fall sharply if the GST compensation is stopped from July 2022, primarily as a significant part of guaranteed revenue of states like Punjab was met using compensation (37% in 2018-19, 47% in 2019-20, and 56% in 2020-21).

OVERBURDENED DISCOMS

• The power sector accounts for much of the financial burden of state governments in India, both in terms of subsidies and contingent liabilities.
• Illustratively, many state governments provide subsidies, artificially depressing the cost of electricity for the farm sector and a section of the household sector.
• Despite various financial restructuring measures 17, the performance of the DISCOMs has remained weak, with their losses surpassing the pre-UDAY level of 0.4 percent of GDP.

POLITICS OF ‘FREEBIES’

• Political parties are outdoing each other promising free electricity and water, laptops, cycles etc.
• The freebies put a significant strain on the fiscal position of State governments and can’t be easily taken back by succeeding governments.
• Freebies for Andhra Pradesh and Punjab exceeded two per cent of the GSDP, while for Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, it was between one and two per cent of GSDP.

LEGAL LOOPHOLES

• The current FRBM provisions mandate that the Governments disclose their contingent liabilities, but that disclosure is restricted to liabilities for which they have extended an explicit guarantee.
• In reality, the State governments resort to extra-budgetary borrowings to finance their populist measures. This debt is concealed to circumvent the FRBM targets. Further, there is no comprehensive information in the public domain to assess the size of this off-budget debt.

THE BORROWING SPREE: LOOMING CONCERNS

MENACE OF ‘ESCROW ACCOUNTS

• The report points out that, unable and unwilling to control expenditure, these states have been borrowing from banks against the collateral of future revenues by creating escrow accounts which is clearly unconstitutional, and by also pledging government assets.
• An escrow account is one that is kept outside government accounts and managed by the bank till the liability is cleared, and into which future revenues will go directly, instead of going into the consolidated fund of the states as mandated by the constitution.
• At least five states have escrowed their future revenues in this manner to raise loans.

BY PASSING CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

• Between 2019-20 and 2021-22, Andhra Pradesh raised Rs 23,899 crore, UP Rs 17,750 crore, Punjab Rs 2,879 crore, MP Rs 2,698 crore, and Himachal Rs 90 crore.
• By doing so, they were trying to bypass article 293 of the Constitution, which requires the states to take permission from the Centre to raise loans from the market if they are indebted to the Centre, which they are.

AGGRAVATING BANKING SECTOR STRESS

• Most of these loans have been given by the public sector banks, including the SBI.This could have serious implications for the already significant NPA crisis.
• RBI has now issued a directive to them to stop this practice forthwith and report compliance within three months.

REPLICATING THE SRI LANKAN CRISIS

• Taking a cue from what is happening in Sri Lanka as a result of its unsustainable debt and the precarious finances of states, the RBI report has cautioned that the tendency towards handing out cash subsidies, in normal times, provision of free utility services, the revival of the old pension scheme by some states and extension of implicit and explicit guarantees by various state governments in India is a perfect recipe for an economic disaster.

THE BORROWING SPREE: NEED FOR CAREFUL CONTEMPLATION

Considering all possible causes and concerns of unregulated borrowing by states in India, one can opine that while some expenses are inevitable, some can be addressed with more prudence and probity. For instance, one can certainly be in favour of expanding, for example, the MGNREGA type of spending and subsidy in the form of food ration schemes. These go a long way in increasing the productive capacity of the population. So, they’re not just freebies. However, what should be regulated is announcing freebies merely in the name of vote bank politics. For instance, when it comes to simply giving away loan waivers, one cannot go in favour of these because they have undesired consequences such as destroying the whole credit culture.

THE WAY FORWARD

• RBI has proposed a “triple E framework” to assess expenditure quality, which has constituents of expenditure adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency:
  • Expenditure adequacy is terms of focusing on the government’s primary role;
  • Effectiveness is about assessing performance;
  • Efficiency involves an assessment of the output-input ratio.
• Other recommendations are given by RBI:
  • Fiscal discipline: The state governments must restrict their revenue expenses by cutting down expenditure on non-merit goods in the near term. In the medium term, these states need to put efforts toward stabilizing debt levels.
  • Power sector reforms: Further, large-scale reforms in the power distribution sector would enable the DISCOMs to reduce losses and make them financially sustainable and operationally efficient.
  • Focus on capital creation: In the long term, increasing the share of capital outlays in the total expenditure will help create long-term assets, generate revenue and boost operational efficiency.
  • Risk testing analysis: State governments need to conduct fiscal risk analyses, and stress test their debt profiles regularly to be able to put in place provisioning to manage fiscal risks efficiently
• Legal measures: The FRBM Acts need to be amended. Its provisions should be expanded to cover all liabilities of the Government, whether budget borrowing or off-budget borrowing, regardless of any guarantee.

THE CONCLUSION: Given that the Constitution of India provides clear provisions regarding the borrowing by the Central Government and State Governments, both must diligently abide by the constitutional values and limits. State borrowings must be more transparent and prudent. Also, there must be a behavioural change within political parties to participate in elections on their working capabilities rather than hampering state finances in the name of vote bank.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

• “Taking a cue from what is happening in Sri Lanka as a result of its unsustainable debt and the precarious finances of states, the given status of significant indebtedness of India’s federal units act like swords of Damocles”. Analyse critically in the light of the recent RBI report on State Finances.
• Discuss the various causes for exceeding off-budget borrowings by state governments in India. Do you think unregulated off-budget borrowings will have economic implications? Justify your views.

The Context: The world, after a throbbing pandemic, is under the grasp of yet another zoonotic disaster called MonkeyPox. A recent study revealed that the rate of genetic changes in the monkeypox virus was higher than expected. In this article, we will analyse the ills of monkeypox and possible solutions from the UPSC perspective.

ABOUT THE MONKEYPOX VIRUS

MONKEYPOX

• Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although it is clinically less severe.
• With the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and the subsequent cessation of smallpox vaccination, monkeypox has emerged as the most important orthopoxvirus for public health.
• Monkeypox primarily occurs in central and west Africa, often in proximity to tropical rainforests, and has been increasingly appearing in urban areas. Animal hosts include a range of rodents and non-human primates.
• Ever since it was first reported in humans in 1970, monkeypox virus infections have been largely restricted to countries in Central and Eastern Africa until recently.

RECURRENCE OF MONKEYPOX

• Early in 2022, multiple cases were identified in Spain and several cases were reported from countries where the disease is not endemic, including regions in Europe and North America, and in patients with no history of travel to endemic regions.
• Following a rapid rise in cases, the World Health Organization (WHO), on July 23, 2022, declared the 2022 monkeypox outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
• As of early August 2022, over 25,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported from 83 countries, 76 of which have never historically reported monkeypox.

VIRUSES: A BASIC STUDY

DEFINITION

• A virus is an infectious microbe consisting of a segment of nucleic acid (either DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat.
• Viruses are non-cellular organisms that are characterized by having an inert crystalline structure outside the living cell.

WORKING & FEATURES

• A virus cannot replicate alone; instead, it must infect cells and use components of the host cell to make copies of itself.
• Often, a virus ends up killing the host cell in the process, causing damage to the host organism. Well-known examples of viruses causing human disease include AIDS, COVID-19, measles and smallpox.
• In addition to proteins, viruses also contain genetic material, which could be either RNA or DNA.
• No virus contains both RNA & DNA.
• Viruses that infect plants have single-stranded RNA & Viruses that infect animals have either single or double-stranded RNA or double-stranded DNA.
• Bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) are usually double-stranded DNA viruses.

TYPES

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DNA AND RNA VIRUSES

• DNA viruses contain DNA as the genetic material while RNA viruses contain RNA as the genetic material. Some examples of DNA viruses are Herpes viruses, poxviruses, and hepatitis B.
• Generally, DNA genomes are larger than RNA genomes. Furthermore, most DNA viruses contain double-stranded DNA while most RNA viruses contain single-stranded RNA. Rhabdovirus, coronavirus, SARS, poliovirus, rhinovirus, hepatitis A virus, influenza virus, etc., are some examples of RNA viruses.

PROLIFERATING GENETIC MUTATIONS: THE EVOLUTION AND CONCERN

Recently, a team of researchers at the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge in Portugal has found that the monkeypox virus has been evolving at a faster rate than expected.

KEY FINDINGS

• Scientists said the latest strain of monkeypox, once previously confined to parts of Africa, has about 50 genetic variations compared to related viruses that circulated in 2018-2019.
• They found the virus is continuing to evolve during the current outbreak, including a number of small changes in the genetic code, minor gene variants and a deleted gene.

LOOMING CONCERNS

• The monkeypox virus has a DNA genome of around 2,00,000 base pairs, roughly six times larger than that of SARS-CoV-2. Like other viruses, the monkeypox virus evolves by the accumulation of genetic errors, or mutations, in its genome when it replicates inside a host.
• Information about mutations occurring in different genome sequences of the monkeypox virus across different regions can, thus, provide essential insights into how the virus is evolving, its genetic diversity and other factors that may be relevant to the development of diagnostic tools.

RISKS OF PARALLEL EVOLUTION

• Being a DNA virus, the monkeypox virus, like other poxviruses, was believed to have a small rate of accumulating genetic changes compared to viruses with an RNA genome like SARS-CoV-2, which have a much larger rate of mutations. For poxviruses, this rate is estimated to be as low as a couple of genetic changes every year.
• A recent study, however, revealed that the observed rate of genetic changes in the virus was higher than the expected average of around 50 genetic changes.
• The higher-than-expected rate of evolution coupled with the rapid rise in monkeypox cases across the world could potentially be due to highly parallel evolution in a large number of individuals simultaneously, as the present outbreak came out of a super spreader event.

ASPECT OF APOBEC3 PROTEIN

• The researchers also suggest that several mutations that have been identified in the new sequences of the monkeypox virus may have emerged due to interaction between the virus genome and an important family of proteins coded by the human genome known as the Apolipoprotein B Editing Complex (or APOBEC3). These proteins offer protection against certain viral infections by editing the genome sequence of the virus while it replicates in the cell.
• Therefore, researchers suggest that many of the genetic mutations in the monkeypox genomes from the current outbreak are remnants of the effect of APOBEC3 and may not provide a significant evolutionary advantage to the virus.

POSSIBLE OUTREACH OF THE VIRUS

• Monkeypox virus can infect a range of hosts, including non-human primates and rodents, which could act as a natural reservoir. Infections in the reservoir could also enable continued transmission and accumulation of mutations before spilling over to cause human infections.

MONKEYPOX LINEAGES

• Clusters of genomes having common and shared mutations and a common origin are referred to as a lineage or clade. In the early 2000s, two different clades of monkeypox virus were defined in Africa, where several cases of the disease have been seen the Central African (Congo Basin) clade and the West African clade, of which the Congo Basin clade has been shown to be more transmissible and cause more severe disease.

HOW ARE LINEAGES OF VIRUSES NAMED?

• Since naming viral lineages using the country or geography of origin could be discriminatory and possibly not in the right spirit, a new system of naming monkeypox lineages has been proposed by researchers recently.
• Under the new proposed system, the Congo Basin clade is denoted as clade 1, while the West African clade is divided into clade 2 and clade 3.
• This new system will also describe sub-lineages of the virus, with the original parent lineage being denoted as lineage ‘A’, and its descendants as ‘A.1’, ‘A.1.1’, ‘A.2’, and ‘B.1’.
• Lineage B.1 denoted the current 2022 outbreak of monkeypox virus infections which is a descendant of the A.1.1 lineage.

SIGNIFICANCE OF LATEST MONKEYPOX OUTBREAK

UNDERSTANDING GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE VIRUS

• With several genome sequences of the monkeypox virus available in public databases, it is possible today to understand the prevalence of different lineages of the virus across different regions.
• Over 95% of the recently deposited genome sequences of the virus belong to the B.1 lineage of the monkeypox virus, and this lineage is epidemiologically linked to the super spreader events in Europe that formed the basis for the current outbreak of monkeypox.

TRACKING THE SPREAD

• While a majority of the genomes deposited could be linked to the 2022 outbreak of monkeypox, sequences deposited recently in 2022 from the U.S., Thailand and India suggest that there is a second distinct lineage of the monkeypox virus that is currently in active circulation in 2022.
• These genomes are classified as the A.2 lineage of the monkeypox virus and currently encompass six genome sequences, including two that were collected from Kerala.
• The earliest genome belonging to this lineage was collected from Texas in 2021, while the two sequences from Kerala collected in 2022 cluster closely with a genome collected from Florida in the same year.

AIDING GENOMIC SURVEILLANCE

• Genomic surveillance of pathogens provides interesting insights by following a molecular approach for contact tracing and understanding the transmission of the virus across the world.
• As cases of monkeypox continue to rise, it is therefore important to strengthen the genomic surveillance for the monkeypox virus.
• Since data from the present outbreak suggest a sustained human-to-human transmission, continuous genomic surveillance is important to understand the evolution and adaptation of the virus, apart from providing useful data to epidemiologists.

THE WAY FORWARD

• Genomic surveillance has played a crucial role in the global Covid -19 response, with countries like South Africa able to make essential contributions in detecting variants due to their capacities in this area. Thus, in the wake of the COVID-19 cases continuing unabated and monkeypox having a proliferating trend, there is an urgent need to build a sustainable system for genomic surveillance in India.
• Genomic sequencing is a crucial part of every country’s approach to detecting and containing outbreaks of other pathogens. Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) has conducted various surveillance studies on genomic mutations. It provides an accurate real-time picture of how a pandemic is moving, and thus, its capabilities must be continuously refined. The INSACOG is crucial in:
  • Early detection of genomic variants of public health implications through sentinel surveillance.
  • To determine the genomic variants in unusual events/trends (Vaccine breakthrough, super-spreader events, high mortality/morbidity trend areas etc.).
  • To correlate the genome surveillance data with epidemiological data.
  • To suggest public health actions based on the analysis of genomic and epidemiological surveillance data.
• A Rapid Response Team (RRT) must be formed in each State/UT by the Health Department. The team should comprise a clinician, a microbiologist and a member of the Medical College (preferably from the Community Medicine Department). As soon as any mutation is detected and conveyed to the State/UT, the RRT must be deployed by the State/UT to the site, where it will investigate the mutant

THE CONCLUSION: Recently, WHO’s Science Council released a report, “Accelerating access to genomics for global health”, advocating for passing on Genomic Technologies to developing countries. The report mentions that countries with established expertise must come forward in support of vulnerable developing nations for the cause of enhancing their genetic sequencing and surveillance capabilities.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

• “With COVID-19 continuing unabated and monkeypox around the corner, the time has never been better, and the need never more acute, to build a sustainable system for genomic surveillance in India.” In the light of this statement, examine the efficacy of the recently formed Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG).
• “A recent study revealed that the rate of genetic changes in the monkeypox virus was higher than expected.” In the light of this statement, explain the potential causes of the proliferation of viruses like MonkeyPox.
• Discuss the types of viruses. How are lineages of viruses named? Explain in the light of the monkeypox virus.

THE CONTEXT: The discourse on privatization and public assets sale is not new in India. Some people favour it, and some oppose it. The sale of the loss-making national carrier Air India to the Tata Group is a move that evoked a mixed response. While some hailed it on the assumption that it would no longer spell a further loss to the exchequer, its opponents felt that a national asset was being sold at a throwaway price without transparency by the Union government. Critics of the government say that the government failed to fill fiduciary duty in the case of Air India selling.

THE ISSUES WITH THE AIR INDIA SALE

WHAT IS FIDUCIARY DUTY?

In brief, fiduciary duty is a requirement that a person in a position of trusts, such as a real estate agent, broker, or executor, must act in good faith and honesty on behalf of a client. Fiduciary duty is a legal obligation of the highest degree for one party to act in another’s best interest.

The person to whom a fiduciary owes their duty is the principal or beneficiary. Accordingly, the fiduciary must work to the best of their ability to benefit the principal and bring about a satisfactory result or capable stewardship of the principal’s assets.

THE ISSUE OF PUBLIC TRUST

• It is prudent to extend the doctrine of ‘public trust’ to the government’s management of public sector enterprises. There is a fiduciary duty cast upon the government to act reasonably and in a transparent manner while dealing with public assets. Unlike a private asset sale, a government selling public assets and assuming liabilities without proper planning will impose an enormous debt burden on citizens.

SET A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT FOR OTHER SALES

• The Air India asset sale needs scrutiny in light of the Government’s new National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), where public assets will be monetised either as leases or outright sales. Air India’s asset sale and retention of liabilities set a dangerous precedent as it could result in selling public assets to government faithful and leaving the liabilities to citizens.

CRISIS OF TRANSPARENCY

• The privatisation of loss-making public sector enterprises may prevent the state from incurring further losses. However, unless the sale proceeds are substantial, genuine and transparent, a crisis of legitimacy may arise.

SIMILAR CASES WHERE FIDUCIARY DUTY IS NOT BEING FOLLOWED BY THE GOVERNMENT:

1. One example is the anonymous electoral bonds scheme which taps corporate funding to help any political party and where the details are known only to the ruling party, which could fuel mistrust of such asset sales. A Right to Information filing by the Association for Democratic Reforms showed that with the State Bank of India as the sole authorised dealer of electoral bonds, out of ₹3,429 crores of the total value of electoral bonds generated by the bank (FY19-20), the ruling party at the Centre alone devoured a whopping ₹2,606 crores or 76% of the total bonds issued so far. This is also the period that saw some major privatisation of public sector enterprises.Here, the role of discreet political funding through anonymous electoral bonds needs to be assessed more closely.
2. The recent award of a contract worth ₹1,126 crores to a Chinese firm (Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Co. Ltd.) to construct an underground rail stretch in Delhi and a contract worth ₹170 crores to another Chinese firmfor the supply of wheels to Vande Bharat trains cannot be seen in isolation. It is important to remember that China is an aggressor at the Line of Actual Control.

TYPES OF SALES

• Enterprise sale: In order to unlock the value of assets, liabilities are retained by the seller either by himself or through an SPV, and assets are sold for a competitive price; otherwise, the liabilities will surpass the value of the assets, rendering the enterprise value to negative.
• Asset sale: An asset sale involves selling a business asset to another party, i.e. the purchaser. This includes tangible assets such as equipment and inventory, and intangible assets such as business goodwill, its intellectual property (IP) and customer lists.
• Private asset sale: It involves the consent of the secured creditors (mostly banks) who give their consent to park the liability only when they are satisfied that the promoters or the shareholders of the private enterprise would be able to satisfy the liabilities either from the proceeds of the sale or otherwise.
• Public asset sale: The sale of assets controlled by the government (sovereign), has a few shortcomings as follows:
• Directly or indirectly government-controlled banks cannot conduct due diligence independently on the nature of the sale
• Banks also cannot report fairly on whether the sale proceeds are sufficient to satisfy the debt because the government has given an undertaking to repay the debt, or the government may even force banks into a settlement with lesser repayment or even a write-off.

THE PRESENT PRIVATIZATION POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT

Fulfilling the government’s commitment under the Atma Nirbhar Package to coming up with a policy of strategic disinvestment of public sector enterprises, with the following feature

• Strategic Sector: Bare minimum presence of the public sector enterprises and remaining to be privatised or merged or subsidiaries with other CPSEs or closed.
• Strategic sector: Industries are considered strategic if it has large innovative spillovers and if it provides a substantial infrastructure for another forum in the same or related industry
• Following 4 sectors come under it :

• • • Atomic energy, Space and Defence
    • Transport and Telecommunications
    • Power, Petroleum, Coal and other minerals
    • Banking, Insurance and financial services
• Non-Strategic Sector: In this sector, CPSEs will be privatised, otherwise shall be closed.

Non-strategic sector

• will include hotel and tourist services, transportation vehicle and equipment, industrial and consumer goods, trading and marketing, and transport and logistics

The policy of the government on the 18 strategic sectors Other sectors

18 strategic sectors under 3 different classificatory types are

• mining and exploration
• processing and generation and
• the service sector

Policy regarding PSU by the govt

• Govt will completely exit the non-strategic sector
• in the strategic sector govt will keep a maximum of 1-4 PSU and subsequently opt for strategic disinvestment

PRIVATIZATION OF PSU SINCE 2014, INCLUDING BANKS

The increase in the supply of PSU stocks and the constrained investor appetite had started affecting the prices. The trade-off between the political objective to privatize and revenue maximization was witnessed the most in this period. Resultantly, the government resort to Strategic Sales.

However, a departure from past govt is also disinvesting profit-making ventures with a rationale that disinvestment of profit-making enterprises by a public offering of shares is desirable as it leads to dispersed shareholding and avoids concentration of economic power.

However, in the case of the bank, an amalgamation policy was followed which reduced the number of the national bank from 28 to 12 by merging various banks.

• But even after this, there was no meaningful resolution of the NPA crisis.
  • In fact, post the covid crisis, this problem will increase as small banks are facing the problem of balancing credit growth and risk.
  • With the spectre of insolvencies looming at the start of pandemic-led lockdown, there was a flight of deposits from small banks to bigger ones.
• In view of this, the govt has focused on taking PSBs out of government control.

Overall approach

Since 2014, the Modi government’s strategic disinvestment approach was to sell minority stakes in public companies to raise revenue, while retaining management control. During the 2014-2019 period, the government raised Rs. 2,79,622 crore from the disinvestment of public sector enterprises (PSEs), compared to Rs 1,07,833 crore collected during 2004-14. However, this has changed now. Recently, five companies were up for 100 per cent disinvestment, including three large profitable companies such as Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL), the Container Corporation of India and the Shipping Corporation.

THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PRIVATIZATION POLICY BY THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT

Is privatization of banks panacea for success

• Private players in the financial sector are prone to failure: this fact gave the world economic shock of astronomical proportion, which was over reachingly created by private bank
• Private banks fail all the time. In the 20 years from 2001 to 2020, as many as 559 private banks with assets of $721 billion failed in the US.
• The principle followed by private banks is when they make profits, it goes to shareholders: When they make losses, it gets socialised and falls in the lap of the government to make good the deposits either through insurance or taxpayer bailout. (Yes Bank, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), bailed out the above bank.)
• Big private banks can fail at any time: There is a myth that if a bank gets large enough, it will not fail. While one can agree that the larger the bank, the greater its ability to absorb losses, this does not mean it cannot fail. The axiom “Higher you go, harder the fall” applies best to private banks. Yes, Bank, Citi Bank, and Washington Mutual Bank are all such examples.

Looking at the larger interest

• The move towards divesting ownership in strategic sectors will have long-term consequences. A diluted public sector would possibly mean that India missing out on the opportunity to capitalise on the global distrust against Chinese supply lines in the wake of the current crisis.
• Moreover, the valuation of PSU is at an all-time low. At the start of NDA-2, the valuation of PSU at the BSE was 22% which has reduced to 9.4% in Oct 2020.
• At present, because of the crisis presented by the pandemic, it is highly unlikely that more than 10 per cent of the shares of the LIC is subscribed, as the market may not be able to absorb more.

PSU MODELS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

PSUs exist virtually everywhere. In Asia where PSUs have played an important role in shaping the economy. According to an OECD report, PSUs pull plenty of economic might —

• in China, they account for 30% of GDP,
• in Vietnam, 38%,
• and they account for roughly a fourth of GDP in India and Thailand.
• PSUs are also big employers in many of these countries — 15% in China, and 5% in Malaysia.
• PSUs play an important role in BRICS economies.
  • According to a recent KPMG report, of the 2,000 largest companies globally, 260 are from BRICS economies.
  • About 123 or 47% of the largest BRICS enterprises are PSU. The market value of PSU amounts to 32% of GNIs (gross national income) among all BRICS countries.

All the above example shows that privatization is not the only panacea for bringing efficiency, improving productivity, and building productive assets.

THE GLOBAL PRACTICES

Reshaping the PSU buy other countries

Three former planned economies have set up centralized holding entities — SASAC in China in 2003, SCIC in Vietnam in 2007 and Druk Holdings and Investments in Bhutan. In 2006, the Philippines pioneered the development of a PSU governance scorecard which has become an important tool for pushing PSU reforms. Since 2004, Malaysia has rolled out a comprehensive ‘transformation programme” to overhaul its PSUs.

An incorporated holding company Temasek to better manage its assets on a commercial basis was launched in Singapore. This allowed its Ministry of Finance to focus on policy making. At inception, Temasek’s initial portfolio was S$354 million, spanning 35 companies. Thereafter began the process of restructuring SOEs. Some were corporatized and privatized, others were allowed to go for big global expansions.

THE CHINA EXAMPLE: 

In 2003, a holding company, the State-Owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission (SASAC), was created to manage the SEO. The agency, which controls nearly 100 of the largest SOEs, lies “at the heart of China’s industrial deep state

THE WAY FORWARD: WHAT CAN INDIA LEARN?

ALTERNATIVES TO PRIVATISATION (WITH PAST EXAMPLES)

 A fire sale privatisation, as is prescribed by free market evangelists, is an also less efficient method of value maximization, besides being completely impractical in India’s political economy. Neither disinvestment nor the few outright privatizations that have taken place seem to have really maximized value for the key shareholder — the taxpayer of India.

The case for privatisation is trickier and the trick lies likely elsewhere – in control. Within the Indian landscape, there are examples, albeit few, where significant (or even majority) government ownership has not prevented the company from creating enormous value for shareholders. Since Independence, while most government-funded enterprises were set up as public sector undertakings, mostly under enabling legislations, there were other models explored too.

1. Maruti Udyog was set up as a Joint Venture of the government of India with Suzuki of Japan, with the latter initially holding a minority stake. But the cornerstone of the structure was on management control – government, despite its majority stake, allowed a very substantial amount of management and operational freedom to Suzuki to manage the company on commercial lines.
2. A second model used often, mostly in financial services, has been that of indirect ownership — via other PSUs while allowing private sector-level management and operational freedoms. The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI), the erstwhile parent company of ICICI Bankwas set up as a joint venture of public sector banks, insurance companies and the World Bank.
3. UTI Bank (known as Axis Banknow) was sponsored by the government owned UTI-1, a special purpose vehicle created out of the restructuring of Unit Trust of India.
4. HDFC, the mortgage lender, was initially sponsored by ICICI, with minority shareholdings with IFC (part of the World Bank group) and the Prince Aga Khan foundation.

Apart from above, government should a progressive approach for privatization as given below:

NEGATIVE BIDS

• The government should permit negative bids: a bid where the government pays someone to take the company off its hands. Negative bids were an important part of the massive privatization which took place in Germany after the end of socialism and helped to get productive assets rapidly into the hands of efficient managers in the private sector.

MOU MODELS

• In  South Korea, PSUs with high social obligation operates with private sectors with the help Of MOUs.
• But one of the most important things, that is forgotten in the outright privatization of CPSUs is that it is unaccompanied by the necessary reforms in the overall regulatory framework in which they operate. Reforms of the regulatory frameworks and the markets are crucial for the performance of both PSUs and private companies, ensuring a rule-based competitive structure covering entry, exit, bankruptcy and competition among existing companies, as manifested by the British privatization of the 1980s and 90s.

CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY

• The privatization of loss-making public sector enterprises may prevent the state from incurring further losses. However, unless the sale proceeds are substantial, genuine and transparent, a crisis of legitimacy may arise.

RECOGNISING THE ROLE OF STATES

• It is vital to recognise the role of States in establishing a public asset such as Air India, They have actively participated in the growth of the airline in the form of land and other infrastructure to its offices.

o   States were not consulted in the whole process which is a breach of the spirit of ‘cooperative federalism’.

THE CONCLUSION: While the experience of other countries is available to India by way of guidance, it would have to evolve its own techniques, best suited to its level of development. The historic, cultural, and institutional context influences the way in which and the pace at which privatization is implemented. Where the market economy is not fully developed, ways would have to be found to safeguard the interests of consumers and investors, which would ensure a fuller play to the wealth-creating role of the entrepreneurs.  Apart from it, along with profit-driven marketplace, the welfare policy interventions of public sector enterprises such as social uplift, full employment need to be advocated.It is prudent to extend this doctrine of ‘public trust’ to the management of public sector enterprises by the government, as selling public assets and assuming the liabilities without proper planning will impose an enormous debt burden on citizens.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. Why is fiduciary duty an important element of government functioning? How can government fulfil its fiduciary duty in its functioning, especially related to asset sale processing?
2. How far do you think that the central government’s approach to the asset sale is facing a trust deficit, and it is resulting in liabilities being left to citizens? Substantiate your views with examples.

“Now I am careful about the kind of roles that I do.”

-Rajendra Prasad

THE CONTEXT: In July 2022, Droupadi Murmu took oath as the 15th President of India. Chief Justice N. V. Ramana administered the oath of office to Murmu. She is the first tribal of India. Apart from it, she is the second women president of India after Pratibha Devisingh Patil. In this article, we will know the election, functions and powers of the president of India.

ABOUT DROUPADI MURMU

• Hailing from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district and coming from a Santals Tribal Community, Murmu started as a teacher and then entered into Odisha politics; here’s everything you need to know about India’s first president from the tribal community.
• In 2015, Murmu was sworn in as the first woman Governor of Jharkhand.
• She was also the first Odia woman and tribal leader to be named governor of an Indian state and serve for the entire term of her office.
• A two-term former MLA from Rairangpur, Murmu, held on to her assembly seat in 2009 when the BJD had snapped ties with the BJP weeks ahead of the state elections swept by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
• Having been born into a tribal family that was battling poverty in one of the country’s most remote and underdeveloped districts, her childhood had been full of challenges.
• Overcoming all odds, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Arts from Ramadevi Women’s College in Bhubaneswar. She served as a junior assistant in the irrigation and power department in the Odisha government.
• She began her political career as the vice-chairman of the Rairangpur NAC. In addition, the Odisha Legislative Assembly honoured her with its Best MLA of the Year 2007 award.
• She has diverse administrative experience, having handled ministries such as transport, commerce, fisheries and animal husbandry in the Odisha government.

CONCEPT OF THE PRESIDENT: THE BACKGROUND

Constituent Assembly, while debated in Constituent Assembly, gave weightage to the parliamentary form of government over the Presidential form of government due to:

• Familiarity with the system under two centuries of British rule.
• Our forefathers prefer ‘responsible government’ over ‘stable government’.

CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT

• Article 52 to 78 in Part V of the constitution deals with the Union executive. The President is the head of the Indian state. He is the first citizen of India and acts as the symbol of unity, integrity and solidarity in the nation.
• The Constitution of India has provided for a parliamentary form of government. Consequently, the President has been made only a nominal executive, the real executive being the council of ministers headed by the prime minister.

PROCEDURE OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

VOTES OF MEMBERS OF

• The Electoral College, which elects the President through the system of proportional representation, comprises elected MPs and members of state legislative assemblies — a total of 4,896 voters, including 4,120 MLAs and 776 elected MPs.
• While 233 are elected members of the Rajya Sabha, 543 are from the Lok Sabha.

METHOD TO ASCERTAIN THE VALUE OF VOTE

 HOW IT WORKS OUT

• The winning candidate needs to secure a certain quota of votes which is 50% of the valid votes polled +1.
• Each MP and MLA indicates his/her choices in the case of multiple candidates in order of preference.
• Each vote cast is given a value based on various factors such as the first preference order, value of the vote of each electorate, etc.

NEED TO KNOW

All doubts and disputes in connection with the election of the President are inquired into and decided by the Supreme Court whose decision is final.

DISCRETIONARY POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT

Though the President has no constitutional discretion, he has some situational discretion. In other words, the President can act on his discretion (that is, without the advice of the ministers) under the following situations:

• Appointment of Prime Minister when no party has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha (Hung Parliament) or when the Prime Minister in office dies suddenly and there is no obvious successor.
• Dismissal of the council of ministers when it cannot prove the confidence of the Lok Sabha.
• Dissolution of Lok Sabha if the council of ministers has lost its majority.

OTHER POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT

EXECUTIVE POWERS

Article 53(1) vests the executive power of the union in the president. All executive actions of the Government of India and all contracts and assurances of the property made by the Government of India are formally taken in the president’s name.

The President of India makes an appointment to other constitutional officers and other important members of the union government. These include:

• Prime Minister
• Other ministers, on the advice of Prime Minister
• Chief Justice of India
• Other Judges of the Supreme Court, on the advice of the Chief Justice
• Chief Justice and other judges of high courts
• Chairman and other members of UPSC and Joint Public Service Commissions, etc.

The executive powers vested in the president have to be exercised in accordance with the advice of the Council of Ministers as per Article 74(1). However, he has the power to send back the advice to the council of Ministers for reconsideration. If the council of Ministers adheres to the previous advice, the president has to act as per this advice.

LEGISLATIVE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT

As a part of Parliament, President has the power to summon or prorogue the two houses of parliament.

The President may dissolve the Lok Sabha.

After the General Elections, the president addresses both the houses of the parliament.

He may address either House or a joint sitting.

He also nominates 12 members of the Rajya Sabha.

PARLIAMENT BILLS

The bills passed by the parliament become acts only after the assent of the president. When a bill is sent to President after it is passed in parliament, President has the following options:

• can either give his assent (he must give assent in case of Constitution Amendment bill),
• withhold his assent if it is not a Constitution amendment bill,
• Return the bill to the parliament for reconsideration if it is not a money bill.
• When Parliament passes again a bill sent to it with or without amendments, the president has to give assent to that bill.

STATE BILLS

Governor has been given the power to reserve a bill for consideration of the president, provided the such bill is not a money bill of that state. When the governor sends the such bill to the president, the president has the following options:

• give his assent to the bill
• withhold his assent to the bill
• Direct the governor to return the bill for reconsideration by the state legislature.
• If the state legislature again passes the bill with or without amendments; and
• If the governor again sent to the president, it is NOT obligatory for the president to give assent to the such bill.

POCKET VETO

In the case of an ordinary bill or a bill got introduced by a private member and passed by both houses, the president can just keep the bill in his pocket and forget it.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL

After the 24^th amendment in 1971, it was made clear that once passed by parliament, the president has to give his assent to Constitutional Amendment Bill.

While the president cannot block a constitution amendment bill, such bills are subject to judicial scrutiny. They can be nullified by Supreme Court if they are violative of basic structure doctrine.

MONEY BILLS

Money bills can be introduced in the Parliament only with the prior recommendation of the President. Due to this President can agree to that bill or withhold his assent but can NOT return a money bill to the house for reconsideration.

THE BILLS THAT NEED PRIOR RECOMMENDATION OF THE PRESIDENT

The bills that need the prior recommendation of the president for introduction in parliament are as follows:

• Any bill that seeks to alter the boundaries of the states and names of the states. (Article 3)
• Money Bill (as per Article 110)
• Any bill which affects the taxation in which the states are interested (Article 274)
• State Bills impose a restriction on freedom of trade (Article 304).

ORDINANCE MAKING POWERS OF PRESIDENT

When both or any house of Parliament is not in session, the constitution via article 123 provides the power to the president to issue ordinances if he is satisfied with the circumstances of issuing a such ordinance.  Ordinances are promulgated when parliament is not in session.

The ordinance has a similar effect to an act of parliament. However, every ordinance must be laid before both houses of the parliament within six weeks from the reassembling of the parliament; if not, it lapses.

However, it may be withdrawn by the president at any time on the aid and advice of the CoM headed by the PM.

JUDICIAL POWERS / POWER TO PARDON

Article 72 says that the President 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. The meaning of these terms is as follows:

• Pardon: Complete pardon
• Reprieve: Temporary suspension of sentence
• Respite: awarding fewer sentence
• Remission: Reducing amount of sentence
• Commutation: Changing one punishment to another

The power to grant pardon is not absolute and is exercised by the President on the advice of the Council of Ministers like any other power. Further, the power to pardon is subject to judicial review.

MILITARY POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT

Article 53 vests the supreme command of the Armed Forces of India in the President.

The President of India can declare war or conclude peace, under the regulation of the parliament.

DIPLOMATIC POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT

India is represented in an International forum by the President of India. He sends and receives ambassadors.

All international treaties and agreements are concluded on behalf of the President, subject to ratification by the parliament.

EMERGENCY POWERS

President has been conferred extraordinary powers in case of national emergency (Article 352), President’s rule (Article 356 & 365) and financial emergency (article 360).

THE CONCLUSION: Though the President of India is a nominal head, he has, along with some situational discretion, played a very important role in upholding Constitutional rule. Article 53 says endowed the executive power of the Union shall be vested in President and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with the Constitution.

1. ‘Executive power of the Union shall be vested in President and shall be exercised directly or through officers subordinate to him by the constitution’. Discuss the essence of the statement.
2. Discuss the role of the President at the time of hung parliament and also other discretionary powers that constitution endowed to him.

THE CONTEXT: The Supreme Court judgement recently held protected land in Aravalli ranges as forests, guarding it against non-forest use. This article will analyse the implications of this judgement from the UPSC perspective.

BASICS ABOUT THE ARAVALLIS

LOCATION & FORMATION

• They stretch for a distance of about 720 km from Himmatnagar in Gujarat to Delhi, spanning Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Delhi.
• The Aravallis date back to millions of years when a pre-Indian subcontinent collided with the mainland Eurasian Plate.
• The Aravallis of Northwestern India, one of the oldest fold mountains of the world, now form residual mountains with an elevation of 300m to 900m. Guru Shikhar Peak on Mount Abu is the highest peak in the Aravalli Range (1,722 m).
• It has been formed primarily of folded crust when two convergent plates move towards each other by the process called orogenic movement.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARAVALLIS

ACTING AS A GREEN BARRIER

• The Aravallis act as a barrier between the fertile plains in the east and the sandy desert in the west.
• Historically, it is said that the Aravalli range checked the spread of the Thar desert towards the Indo-Gangetic plains, serving as a catchment of rivers and plains.

INFLUENCING CLIMATE & RAINFALL

• During monsoons, it forms a parallel wall to monsoon clouds moving eastwards, thus helping nurture the sub-Himalayan rivers and feeding the north Indian plains.
• In the winter months, it protects the fertile alluvial river valleys from the cold westerly winds from Central Asia.

HABITAT FOR DIVERSITY

• The Aravallis provides habitat to 300 native plant species, 120 bird species and many exclusive animals like the jackal and mongoose.

PROVIDING BREATHING SPACE

• This Aravalli range is considered the “lungs” for the polluted air of Delhi–National Capital Region (NCR).
• For Haryana, having the lowest forest cover at around 3.59% of the total forest cover in India, the Aravalli range is the only saving grace, providing the major portion of its forest cover (2017 Forest Survey Report).

PROTECTING THE ARAVALLIS: OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENTS & RULINGS

OFFICIAL DEFINITION OF THE ARAVALLIS `ARAVALLI NOTIFICATION’ (1992)

• In 1992, to protect the ecologically sensitive Aravallis, the ministry of environment and forests (MOEFCC) introduced what is colloquially called the Aravalli notification.
• It says that apart from reserved forests or places already classified as `forest’ in government records, areas categorised as gair mumkin pahar (uncultivable hill), gair mumkin rada (foothills, pastures), gair mumkin be hed (ravined foothills), Banjar beed (cultivable grassy foothills) and round (rocky areas between two hills) will be treated as Aravallis.
• The same status is also to be given now to any land classified under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act. All such areas in NCR will be protected and identified as Aravallis; the MoEFCC has told the green court.
• The immediate implication is that it extends a protective cover to large swathes of land in NCR, especially in Gurgaon and Faridabad.
• Before this notification, the Haryana government claimed that the status of such land was not yet been decided, leaving them open to real estate projects. Before this, the Aravali notification was applicable only to Gurgaon and Alwar (Rajasthan).

EVOLUTION OF THE ARAVALLI ISSUE

IMPORTANT SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENTS

TN GODAVARMAN THIRUMULPAD ‘VS UNION OF INDIA (1996)

• Clarified definition of the forest: ‘Forest’ must be understood according to its ‘dictionary meaning’. The ‘SC asks states to identify accordingly.
• COMPLIANCE: Haryana hasn’t identified areas that fulfil the dictionary meaning of forest.

MC MEHTA VS UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS (2002)

• Ban on groundwater extraction and mining: The SC bans drawing groundwater in ‘an area within 5km radius of Delhi border on Haryana side
• and in the Aravalli hills. Also, mining in 448 sq km area of Aravallis in Faridabad, Gurgaon and Mewat.
• COMPLIANCE: Borewells are still active. Mining has reduced but not stopped altogether.

LAFARGE CASE (2011)

• The SC directs all states to complete the process of identifying forests.
• COMPLIANCE: Haryana has Not initiated the process yet.

ANSAL CASE (2012)

• Any change in revenue records to sell land invalid: Some areas recorded as ‘gair mumkin pahar’ were converted to ‘gair mumkin farmhouse’.
• The SC says these are not to be accepted

2018 KANT ENCLAVE CASE

• The SC said that area notified under PLPA in Haryana must be treated as ‘forest’ and ‘forest land’. The judgment regarding construction in the Aravalli hills of Haryana holds serious implications for the ongoing litigations and preservation of the entire Aravallis in Haryana.
• COMPLIANCE: The Haryana Assembly passed the controversial Punjab Land Preservation (Haryana Amendment) Act, 2019, which opens up nearly 30,000 hectares of protected land for development.

2022 JUDGEMENT BY SC

• The Supreme Court held that all land covered by the special orders issued under Section 4 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA) in Haryana would be treated as forests and be entitled to protection under the 1980 Forest Conservation Act.
• Such land covered under Section 4 can see no commercial activity or non-forest use without the consent of the central government.
• It also stated that land covered by the special orders issued under Section 4 of PLPA has all the trappings of forest lands within the meaning of Section 2 of the Forest Act.
• The court directed the state government to clear any non-forest activity from such land in three months and report compliance.
• The bench considered a September 2018 judgment (Kant Enclave case) which held all land under PLPA could be treated as forest.
• The recent verdict clarified that the previous judgment failed to closely examine the scheme of Section 4 of PLPA and its legal effect in relation to Section 2 of the Forest Act.

SECTION 4 OF PLPA & SECTION 2 OF FOREST ACT: THE CAUSES OF CONCERN

Section 4 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA):

• Special orders under Section 4 of PLPA are the restrictive provisions issued by the state government to prevent deforestation of a specified area that could lead to soil erosion.
• When the state government is satisfied that deforestation of a forest area forming part of a larger area is likely to lead to erosion of soil, the power under Section 4 can be exercised.
• Therefore, the specific land which a special order under Section 4 of PLPA has been issued will have all the trappings of a forest governed by the Forest Act.
• While the land notified under the special orders of Section 4 of PLPA shall be forest lands, not all land under PLPA will ipso facto become forest lands within the meaning of the Forest Act.

Section 2 of the Forest Act:

• Section 2 of the Forest Act imposes prohibitions on the de-reservation of forests or use of forest land for non-forest purposes without prior approval of the central government.
• Once land is covered under Section 2 of the Forest Act, whether the special orders under Section 4 continue to be in force or not, it shall continue to remain forest land.

Plans to override SC judgements: Analysing Government Steps

• Environmentalists fear the ruling may fast-track amendments to Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980. The amendments are likely to be tabled in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament as the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2022.
• As per FCA, activities like the felling of trees or activities like construction, mining and others are considered non-forest use. However, there is no clarity on whether afforestation or planting trees is a forest activity or a non-forest activity.
• The amendment bill aims to clarify the applicability of the Act in various types of land and to streamline the process of approvals. Changing forest conservation rules regarding clearance to projects and ease of business will have major ramifications.
• The forest Act draft proposed in 2021 wanted to remove the forest labels for a deemed wasteland or private forests.
• Under the new amendments, permissions will be granted by the state government instead of the Gram Sabhas. The government’s plan to create land banks by scrapping non-forest areas is just a step away from handing it over to commercial entities.
• While many ‘forests’ are proposed to be de-notified, Gram Sabhas and local communities are not being empowered to protect their rights.

THE WAY FORWARD

• Adhering to SC’s directives: Mining in the Aravalli region has been banned since 2002 under the Supreme Court orders unless expressly permitted by the Union Environment Ministry. However, mining continues illegally. The government should, thus, take immediate steps to follow SC’s directive regarding mining as well as encroachments, as mentioned in its other judgements.
• The Centre is contemplating an ambitious plan to create a 1,400km long and 5km wide green belt from Gujarat to the Delhi-Haryana border. Such projects need to be further upheld and supported by the states sharing the Aravalli ecology.
• There must be increased devolution of decision-making powers to gram sabhas.

THE CONCLUSION: The ethical dilemma of choosing between preserving the environment and the economic growth of the country is persistent for a developing nation like ours. For this, the policymakers must take into consideration the Constitutional morality, the commitments to Sustainable Development goals and the effective consensus of the local community for sustainable and inclusive policy formulations.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

• “The ethical dilemma of choosing between preserving the environment and economic growth of the country is a persistent issue.” In the light of the statement, analyse the recent ruling of the Supreme Court, which considered protected land in Aravalli ranges as ‘forests.’

THE CONTEXT: The Reserve Bank of India has recently introduced a mechanism to facilitate international trade in rupees. Now the import and export payments may be settled through a special Vostro account, while banks, with prior approval from the RBI, can act as authorised dealers for such transactions. This article intends to analyze the implications of rupee internationalization from the UPSC perspective.

INTERNATIONALIZATION OF RUPEE: UNDERSTANDING BASICS

DEFINING CURRENCY INTERNATIONALIZATION

• Currency internationalization is the widespread use of a currency outside the borders of its original country of issue.
• The level of currency internationalization for a currency is determined by the demand that users in other countries have for that currency.
• This demand can be driven by the use of the currency to settle international trade, to be held as a reserve currency or a safe-haven currency, or in general use as a medium of indirect exchange in other countries’ domestic economies via currency substitution.

ORIGIN OF THE DEBATE

OUTBREAK OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS (GFC) OF 2008

• The global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008, for a variety of complex reasons, prompted emerging markets (EMs) to reconsider the role of their currencies as global alternatives to the “big four” currencies (US dollar, Yen, Euro, Pound).
• The outbreak of the GFC and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system.
• This was an indirect assertion that the US was taking advantage of the reserve currency status of the US dollar and dollar liquidity shortages were a real problem for EMs during the GFC.

EMERGENCE OF THE RENMINBI

• China in response, embarked on an ambitious project of “Renminbi internationalization” with the coupled goals of international monetary reform and diversification of global currency risk through internationalizing its currency.

IMPLICATIONS ON INDIAN RUPEE

• China’s policy pivot prompted policymakers in India to consider the possibility of internationalizing the Indian Rupee (INR). The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) commissioned two studies in 2010 and 2011 (Ranjan and Prakash, 2010; Gopinath, 2011) to examine the issues surrounding the internationalization of the INR.
• Both studies recommended a cautious approach towards currency internationalization given the size of the Indian GDP, lower presence in global trade and partial capital account convertibility.
• They also added that while the Rupee is a natural contender for transitioning into a global currency, policymakers should start by increasing the role of the INR in its local region, where the Renminbi has taken the lead over the Rupee.
• In spite of an early interest in pursuing a policy of currency internationalization, both the Indian government and the RBI do not consider it to be a priority in the short to medium term.

LATEST DEVELOPMENT

• The recent push of RBI for rupee internationalization is a great step in the right direction, considering the limitation for using the US dollar as a medium of international transactions, especially with counties under sanctions.
• This would also help reduce exchange rate risk on traders and pressure on the Indian rupees.

PROCESS OF INTERNATIONALIZATION OF A CURRENCY

There are certain necessary preconditions which are as follows:

• The government must remove all restrictions on the freedom of any entity, domestic or foreign, to buy or sell its country’s currency, whether in the spot or forward market.
• Domestic firms are able to invoice some, if not all, of their exports in their country’s currency, and foreign firms are likewise able to invoice their exports in that country’s currency, whether to the country itself or to third countries.
• Foreign firms, financial institutions, official institutions and individuals are able to hold the country’s currency and financial instruments denominated in it in amounts that they deem useful and prudent.
• Foreign firms and financial institutions, including official institutions, are able to issue marketable instruments in the country’s currency.
• The issuing country’s own financial institutions and non-financial firms are able to issue on foreign markets instruments denominated in their country’s own currency.
• International financial institutions, such as the World Bank and regional development banks, are able to issue debt instruments in a country’s market and use its currency in their financial operations.
• The currency may be included in the “currency baskets” of other countries, which they use in governing their own exchange rate policies.

ANALYZING RUPEE INTERNATIONALIZATION

CHALLENGES FOR INDIA: CRITICAL ANALYSIS

ATTAINING SUFFICIENT SCALE

• The issuing country must have sufficient scale, both in terms of nominal gross domestic product and volume of international transactions. For instance, while China is a $10.36 trillion economy, India is roughly at $2 trillion.
• For India to attain sufficient scale, the economy needs to grow at a sustainable average rate of 7-8% for the next five years or so. India’s current share of global trade is also relatively small, and the bulk of it is invoiced in US dollars.
• Improvements in scale are linked to macroeconomic fundamentals, which cannot be changed through an internationalization-driven agenda.

STABILITY OF THE RUPEE

• The value of the currency must be stable over time. A currency is considered stable when the general level of prices does not vary too much. Stability has multiple aspects: macroeconomic, financial and political.
• On macroeconomic stability, earlier this year, India undertook an important reform in the form of the Monetary Policy Framework Agreement that formally lays down inflation targeting as the objective of monetary policy in India. But recent high inflations showed limited outreach of MPC.
• The banking system continues to be overburdened with burgeoning non-performing assets.
• In terms of political stability, the fact that India is a democracy, like issuers of most international currencies in the 19th and 20th centuries, goes in its favour.

ENSURING LIQUIDITY OF THE RUPEE

• A currency is liquid if significant quantities of assets can be bought and sold in the currency without noticeably affecting its price.
• This requires depth in financial markets, a large stock of domestic currency-denominated bonds and adequate options to hedge currency risk exposures.
• India lacks a deep, liquid and well-functioning corporate bond market. Hedging opportunities for foreign investors are limited.
• India has one of the least open capital accounts among emerging economies. Relaxing capital controls to attract foreign investor participation is crucial for enhancing rupee liquidity.

THE WAY FORWARD

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made a strong case for the internationalization of the rupee and sought to differentiate it from capital account convertibility. According to RBI, countries that can borrow in their own currency are less susceptible to the international crisis.
• As the currency risks are born by the lenders and not by the borrowers back in India, this is always a safer option for the Indian economy; hence, it must be promoted.
• Democracy and associated checks and balances on the executive instil confidence in foreign investors about the policy credibility of the government, thereby imparting stability to the national currency. Thus, India can explore the option of controlled internationalization of the rupee.

THE CONCLUSION: Any possibility of conversation on rupee internationalization must be backed by a sustained and stable position of the Indian Rupee. Scale, stability and liquidity can be achieved through strong economic fundamentals and a process-driven regulatory environment. These, by themselves, are important policy goals to achieve for India. It is possible that once these are achieved, the rupee will come to be accepted as an international currency.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. “Only if scale, stability and liquidity of Indian Rupee are achieved, will it be accepted as an international currency.” Examine critically in the light of the recent push by RBI for the internationalization of the rupee.

2. What do you understand by ‘internationalization of currency? Discuss the positives and negatives of the internationalization of the currency.

THE CONTEXT: Recently, the arresting of Alt news Journalist and before that, many arresting around the country raises questions that the content that are posted on social media is not following the community standard (as claimed by these platforms). Although many of these cases are controversial, the development is opined by certain experts to be a start to further elaboration of legislation and government control of these dynamic new media sectors. In this article, we will analyze whether these platforms should be regulated by the government.

RECENT CASES OF ARRESTING FOR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

• In June 2022, Altnews Journalist was arrested for a controversial post.
• A tailor in Udaipur was beheaded for a controversial post on the prophet Mohammad.
• for In June 2022, 18 persons from Saharanpur were arrested for social media post
• A man was arrested in Rajasthan’s Alwar for posting objectionable content with communal overtones on social media
• In Chhattisgarh, a 34-year-old was booked under Section 67(A) of the Information Technology Act, which deals with online obscenity.
• In Assam, two-person arrested for allegedly putting up derogatory social media posts.
• In Kerala, 149 cases were registered against several people for allegedly posting objectionable remarks.
• The cybercrime sleuths of Rachakonda arrested three persons for posting obscene content through fake social media accounts to harass known women and a girl.

All these raised the question of whether the government should regulate online content or should give it free hand.

CHALLENGED POSED BY SOCIAL MEDIA IN RECENT TIMES?

• Extreme content: It is one of the major causes of extremism in society. Recently beheading of a tailor in Udaipur shows how extreme content affects society.
• Hate Speech: In India, legal provisions around hate speech have been previously misused to target marginalized communities and dissenting voices. Numerous hate speech cases have been brought against individuals for posts they made on social networking websites.
• Rumour/ Fake news: It has been observed that in the recent cases of Mob lynching, fake news/Rumor about cattle theft/ Child kidnapping was the major cause. Misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic has been on the rise in India since January 2020.
• Data Piracy: Cambridge Analytica case in 2018 and recent bank fraud raised the concern of data safety.
• Pornography: Pornography, Child pornography is a serious issue.
• Objectionable content: Objectionable content in different shows, especially in web series, has posed a serious challenge to society.

WHAT IS THE PRESENT REGULATION FOR ONLINE CONTENT?

Although there is no specific legislation in India, that deals with social media, and in maximum cases, it is self-regulated. Still, there are several provisions in the existing so-called cyber laws which can be used to seek redress in case of violation of any rights in cyberspace, the Internet and social media. The legislation and the relevant provisions are specifically enumerated as under:

1.The Information Technology Act, 2000

• Sections 65, 66, 66A, 6C, 66D, 66E, 66F, 67, 67A and 67B contain punishments for computer-related offences which can also be committed through social media.
• Section 69 of the Act grants power to the Central or a State Government to issue directions for monitoring of any information.
• Section 69A grants power to issue directions to block public access to any information.
• Section 69B grants power to issue directions to authorize any agency to monitor.
• Section 79 provides for the liability of the intermediary. An intermediary shall not be liable for any third-party information, data or communication link made available or hosted by him in the following cases-
• His function is limited to providing access to a communication system over which such information is transmitted, stored or hosted.
• He does not initiate, select the receiver and select the information contained in the transmission.
• He observes due diligence and other guidelines prescribed by the Central Government while discharging his duties.
• He has conspired, abetted, aided or induced by threats, promises or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful Act.
• He fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to the material which is being used to commit the unlawful Act upon receiving actual knowledge or on being notified by the government.
• If any intermediary fails to assist, comply with the direction and intentionally contravenes provisions under Sections 69, 69A and 69B, respectively, he shall be liable to punishment.
• Section 43A provides that where a body corporate possesses, dealing or handles any sensitive personal data.
• Section 70B provides for an agency of the government to be appointed by the Central Government called the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, which shall serve as the national agency for performing functions relating to cyber security.

2. The Information Technology Rules, 2009: Procedure and Safeguards of Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information- The interception or monitoring or decryption of information under Section 69 shall be carried out by an order issued by the competent authority.

3. The Information Technology Rules, 2009: Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public- The Central Government in the exercise of its powers under Section 87(2) with regard to the procedure and safeguards for blocking access by the public under Section 69A.

4. The Information Technology Rules, 2009: Procedure and Safeguard for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information-

• Directions for monitoring
• The competent authority (the Secretary of the Government of India in the Department of Information Technology) may issue directions for monitoring for purposes related to cyber security.

5. The Information Technology Rules, 2011: Intermediaries Guidelines- It is mandatory for the intermediary to inform the users by clearly stating that under the rules and regulations

6. The Information Technology Rules, 2011: Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information- The disclosure of sensitive personal data or information by a body corporate to any third party shall require prior permission from the provider of such information.

Ø  Code of Ethics for Social Media: At the time of the general election 2019, social media platforms and the Internet and Mobile Association of India submitted the “Voluntary Code of Ethics for the General Election 2019” to Election Commissioner.

Ø  The companies agreed to create a high-priority dedicated reporting mechanism for the ECI and appoint dedicated teams during the period of General Elections to take expeditious action on any reported violations.

WHY IS THERE A NEED TO REVIEW THE PRESENT REGULATIONS?

1.The challenges posed by the Internet activism

The power of the Internet is precisely the reason that governments want to regulate it.

The fears of governments about the Internet:

• National security (instructions on bomb-making, illegal drug production, terrorist activities);
• Protection of minors (abusive forms of marketing, violence, pornography);
• Protection of human dignity (incitement to racial hatred or racial discrimination);
• Economic security (fraud, instructions on pirating credit cards);
• Information security (malicious hacking);
• Protection of privacy (unauthorized communication of personal data, electronic harassment);
• Protection of reputation (libel, unlawful comparative advertising);
• Intellectual property (unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works, software or music).

2. Misuse of section 66A: Section 66A was inserted through an amendment to the Act in 2008. It provides punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services.

The issue:

• There is an inherent inconsistency between the phraseology of Section 66A and Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and expression to every citizen.
• Under Article 19(2), restrictions on freedom of speech and expression are reasonable if they pertain to any of the listed grounds, such as sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.
• But under Section 66A, restrictions have been placed on freedom of speech and expression on several other grounds, apart from those mentioned in the Constitution. To add to the fear that this provision could be hugely misused, several incidents in the recent past bear testimony to the same.
• The Supreme Court found this arbitrary, disproportionate and unreasonable restriction on the right to free speech. The court also said that the speech available online should have the same level of constitutional protection of free speech as that available offline.

GOVERNMENT ATTEMPT FOR THE ONLINE REGULATION

On April 4 2018, the government issued an order seeking to establish content regulations for the Internet, modelled on the ones currently applicable to traditional media like print and television.

Major Timeline:

• April 25, 2018: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, posted a tender online for the creation of a ‘Social Media Communications Hub’. As per this tender, the selected company would be required to monitor Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, internet forums and even e-mail in order to analyze sentiment and identify “fake news”.
• June 16, 2018: The government was planning to get help from social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Facebook, to filter out fake text messages and videos.
• July 3, 2018: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology accused WhatsApp of allowing the circulation of irresponsible and explosive messages.
• August 3, 2018: The central government withdrew the proposal to create a ‘Social Media Communications Hub’ following mainstream media unrest and the filing of a plea before the Supreme Court.
• August 21, 2018: The IT Minister urged Whatsapp to create a mechanism through which the source of fake news could be traced.
• December 24, 2018: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has prepared the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2018 to replace the rules notified in 2011 under the Information Technology Act, 2000. Intermediary refers to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. There were five major guidelines for intermediate:

• The intermediary was enabled to trace out the originator of information on its platform as may be required by government agencies.
• Any platform with more than five million users in India would be required to register a company and have a permanent registered office in India.
• Platforms would be required to preserve information for at least 180 days for investigation purposes.
• The platforms would be required to “deploy technology-based automated tools” for “proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content.”
• The platform informed its users on a monthly basis about the rules and regulations of the platform and warned of immediate termination in case of violation.
• January 7, 2019: The I&B Minister called for self-regulation by social media platforms to deal with fake news.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (INTERMEDIARY GUIDELINES AND DIGITAL MEDIA ETHICS CODE) RULES 2021

• To protect users from incorrect takedowns and account suspensions by social media platforms, the need was felt to institute effective grievance redressal mechanisms (GRM).
• In India, before May 2021, GRMs of social media platforms, if any, were designed as per the concerned platform’s terms of service. There was no standardization, in terms of resolution and timelines, in the design of these GRMs.
• If one was to make a complaint, the process would typically consist of filling out an online form, which would usually solicit an automated response.
• The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules (or IT Rules), 2021, streamlined this by bringing in uniformity.
• Social media platforms now have to appoint a “grievance officer” before whom a user may file a complaint.
• The grievance officer is required to acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days. If unsatisfied with the officer’s order, the user may approach the high court/Supreme Court.

After that

• Accessing the writ jurisdiction of the court can be a time and cost-intensive process. And all users cannot afford that. In this light, it was important to create an appellate that is not as resource intensive to engage with.
• The government’s motivation behind creating this appellate committee seems to come from other factors as well. According to the government, it created this tier because “currently there is no appellate mechanism provided by intermediaries nor is there any credible self-regulatory mechanism in place”.
• But the government and social media platforms saw convergence on a self-regulatory approach being the most optimal design for an appellate mechanism, even as the bare minimum structure is unclear.

CONCERNS ABOUT A SELF-REGULATORY MODEL AFTER GRM 2021

POLITICAL BIASNESS

• Social media platforms have not been paragons of objectivity in deciding which content they want to host or take down. Their political biases have become visible through their decisions to either amplify or restrict certain kinds of content.
• For example, while Twitter is commonly understood to be more partial to liberal/Leftist views, Facebook has been alleged to be partial to Rightist stances. An internal appellate mechanism will likely toe the line of the organization and carry and reinforce the same biases in deciding whether a piece of speech should be allowed or not.

APPELLATE MECHANISM IS NOT TRULY INDEPENDENT

• Even if a number of social media platforms come together to form an appellate tier instead of individual appellate mechanisms, the members of this appellate tier will not have functional independence.
• As long as social media platforms control the members’ appointments, terms of employment and service conditions, they will be wary of taking decisions that may hurt the platform.

TRUST ISSUE

• A self-regulatory approach to adjudicating speech is likely to be riddled with trust issues. Consider the case of Facebook. The platform’s solution for ensuring transparency and impartiality in its content moderation decisions was to constitute the Oversight Board. Facebook created a $130 million irrevocable trust to maintain the Board’s independence and the latter did overturn many of Facebook’s content moderation decisions. But now, the Board has come under severe criticism that its existence has not substantially improved Facebook’s content moderation practices.

These concerns are amplified if, at a later stage, social media platforms are made subject to penalties for wrongfully suspending or terminating a post or user account. It can hardly be expected that social media platforms will design self-regulatory mechanisms in a manner that will encourage them to be held liable and penalized for their decisions.

THEN, SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT REGULATE ONLINE CONTENT IN INDIA?

There are two ways for the regulation of social media

1.Self-regulation

2.State regulation

Let’s discuss the Pros and Cons of both regulations.

1.SELF REGULATION

Pros

• Moral pressure
• Effective in ensuring freedom of expression.
• No state interference.
• In house regulatory mechanism by every company as per their suitability.
• Unaffected media is necessary for a democratic society.

Cons

• Lack of accountability.
• No transparency.
• No clear roadmap for the content.
• Illegal activities.
• No codification for action against unlawful content.

2.STATE REGULATION

Pros

• A clear roadmap for the content.
• It limits criminal activity.
• It helps protect children.
• It strengthens online security.
• It sets standards for what should not be published.

Cons

• Freedom of freedom will be at stake: the state may use absolute power
• It limits access to important information.
• Limits economic opportunities.
• Freedom of media will be under threat: State interference in every manner will affect the freedom of media.

The above analysis shows that self-regulation is the most suitable mechanism for social media. And online content should be self-regulated, but there is a need for improvement in the present situation, which the following steps can hold:

• There will be a clear codification of moral regulation, and all the stakeholders should follow them.
• All the Websites, Companies and other shareholders should respect the IAMAI initiative norms.
• There should be a proper security mechanism for data security.
• Companies can be aware the people about data security, fake news, hate speech and other dangers.
• Content should be lawful and should be as per the societal norms.
• Companies should develop a strong mechanism against objectionable content.

THE WAY FORWARD:

Although self-regulation is better, but the state should fulfil its duty in some cases, such as:

• Data protection
• Stop rumours
• Stop Cybercrime
• Resolve the issue of IT Act 66A and freedom of expression

1.The issue of IT section 66A and freedom of speech

• Some parts, such as Section 66A, were successfully challenged in court and struck down as unconstitutional in 2015 in the Shreya Singhal case. But the Act still empowers the government to block, filter and take down content online.
• The government is empowered to turn off internet access completely. These are options which are, in fact, exercised by the Indian government on a regular basis (between January 2010 and April 2018, there have been more than 164 incidents of internet shutdowns in different parts of India.).
• Section 66A of the IT Act wanted to ambitiously crackdown on information online which could cause “annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will.” It imposed a punishment of up to three years along with a fine.

2. Solutions to Tackle Hate Speech:

• Need to amend Information Technology Act 2000 with good implementation.
• There can be an internationally accepted law that places the responsibility on social media companies like Facebook to tackle hate speech by deleting obviously illegal content within 24 hours if there is a request from the government of a particular nation.
• Generating contra-narratives on social networks and raising public awareness through campaigns to tackle extremism.
• Social media platforms need to take responsibility to ensure transparency, accountability and a system of rules and guidelines that users can recognize as standards and which, when enforced in a regularized fashion, can begin to act as precedents.
• The Indian government has been pushing for internet platforms to locate their servers in the country, which might help address dangerous speech in real-time.

3. Solution for data protection: The recommendations of B.N Srikrishna committee should be implemented

• The processing (collection, recording, analysis, disclosure, etc.) of personal data should be done only for “clear, specific and lawful” purposes.
• The government may process the personal data if this is considered necessary for any function of Parliament or State Legislature.
• ‘Right to be forgotten.
• This right is one of several given to data principals, including the right to confirm what information is being held or disclosed about them and to get this corrected if necessary.
• Personal data will need to be stored on servers located within India, and transfers outside the country will need to be subject to safeguards.
• Critical personal data, however, will only be processed in India.
• “Sensitive” personal data should not be processed unless someone gives explicit consent, which factors in the purpose of processing.
• Setting up a Data Protection Authority.

4. For Cybercrime, a Cyber cell should be established:

• The cyber police station in Maharashtra is located every in district SP headquarters under the Police Commissioner.
• The team will investigate all offences related to the Internet, consisting of one police inspector and three sub-inspectors.

Global practices in this regard

AUSTRALIA

• Australia’s government agreed to make the News Media Bargaining Code law.
• Australia passed the Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material Act in April 2019, introducing criminal penalties for social media companies, possible jail sentences for tech executives for up to three years, and financial penalties worth up to 10% of a company’s global turnover.

USA

• Recently US government released an executive order to revisit a law that gave absolute immunity to social media platforms. The US government is currently in the process of determining what exactly should happen to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (the federal law that gives internet companies protection from liability for user-generated content disseminated on their platforms).

UK

• Under the new Online Safety Bill by the UK government, social media sites, websites, apps, and other services which host user-generated content or allow people to talk to others online that fail to remove and limit the spread of such harmful content will face fines of up to £18 million ($24 million) or ten percent of their annual global turnover.

GERMANY

• It introduced the NetzDG Law in 2018, which states that social media platforms with more than two million registered German users have to review and remove illegal content within 24 hours of being posted or face fines of up to €50m (£42m).

NEW ZEALAND

• Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms. It is a pact agreed to be signed by tech giants in New Zealand to curb harmful online content. 

THE CONCLUSION: It is clearly evident that social media is a very powerful means of exercising one’s freedom of speech and expression. However, it is also increasingly used for illegal acts, which has given force to the government’s attempts at censoring social media. While, on the one hand, the misuse of social media entails the need for legal censorship, on the other hand, there are legitimate fears of violation of the civil rights of people as an inevitable consequence of censorship.

Keeping all this in mind, it is suggested that the government should form a Committee including technical experts to look into all the possible facets of the use and misuse of social media and recommend a suitable manner in which it can be regulated without hindering the civil rights of citizens.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. “Freedom of expression on social media is integral to a healthy, thriving democracy. We will be stronger by enabling and cultivating it, not curtaining it.” Analyze the statement.
2. “It is imperative for the government to recognize the menace of hate speech and ensure that there is proper regulation in place to tackle the issue”. In the light of the statement, discuss what should be the structure for online content regulation in India.
3. “Regulation of social media content should be best left to the tech companies themselves”. Do you agree with the statement? Justify your view.
4. Should social media be self-regulated or state-regulated? Analyze your opinion.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

GUIDELINES RELATED TO SOCIAL MEDIA ARE TO BE ADMINISTERED BY THE MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS, AND IT

Ø  Due Diligence To Be Followed By Intermediaries: The Rules prescribe due diligence that must be followed by intermediaries, including social media intermediaries. In case, due diligence is not followed by the intermediary, safe harbour provisions will not apply to them.

Ø  Grievance Redressal Mechanism: The Rules seek to empower the users by mandating the intermediaries, including social media intermediaries, to establish a grievance redressal mechanism for receiving and resolving complaints from the users or victims. Intermediaries shall appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with such complaints and share the name and contact details of such officer. Grievance Officer shall acknowledge the complaint within twenty four hours and resolve it within fifteen days from its receipt.

Ø  Ensuring Online Safety and Dignity of Users, Specially Women Users: Intermediaries shall remove or disable access within 24 hours of receipt of complaints of contents that exposes the private areas of individuals, show such individuals in full or partial nudity or in sexual Act or is in the nature of impersonation including morphed images etc. Such a complaint can be filed either by the individual or by any other person on his/her behalf.

Ø  Two Categories of Social Media Intermediaries: To encourage innovations and enable the growth of new social media intermediaries without subjecting smaller platforms to significant compliance requirements, the Rules make a distinction between social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries. This distinction is based on the number of users on the social media platform. Government is empowered to notify the threshold of user base that will distinguish between social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries. The Rules require the significant social media intermediaries to follow certain additional due diligence.

Ø  Additional Due Diligence to Be Followed by Significant Social Media Intermediary:

• Appoint a Chief Compliance Officer who shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with the Act and Rules. Such a person should be a resident in India.
• Appoint a Nodal Contact Person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies. Such a person shall be a resident in India.
• Appoint a Resident Grievance Officer who shall perform the functions mentioned under Grievance Redressal Mechanism. Such a person shall be a resident in India.
• Publish a monthly compliance report mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken on the complaints as well as details of contents removed proactively by the significant social media intermediary.
• Significant social media intermediaries providing services primarily in the nature of messaging shall enable identification of the first originator of the information that is required only for the purposes of prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of an offence related to sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order or of incitement to an offence relating to the above or in relation with rape, sexually explicit material or child sexual abuse material punishable with imprisonment for a term of not less than five years. Intermediary shall not be required to disclose the contents of any message or any other information to the first originator.
• Significant social media intermediary shall have a physical contact address in India published on its website or mobile app or both.
• Voluntary User Verification Mechanism: Users who wish to verify their accounts voluntarily shall be provided an appropriate mechanism to verify their accounts and provided with a demonstrable and visible mark of verification.
• Giving Users An Opportunity to Be Heard: In cases where significant social media intermediaries removes or disables access to any information on their own accord, then a prior intimation for the same shall be communicated to the user who has shared that information with a notice explaining the grounds and reasons for such action. Users must be provided an adequate and reasonable opportunity to dispute the action taken by the intermediary.

Ø  Removal of Unlawful Information: An intermediary upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of an order by a court or being notified by the Appropriate Govt. or its agencies through authorized officer should not host or publish any information which is prohibited under any law in relation to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, friendly relations with foreign countries etc.

Ø  The Rules will come in effect from the date of their publication in the gazette, except for the additional due diligence for significant social media intermediaries, which shall come in effect 3 months after publication of these Rules.

THE CONTEXT: Human trafficking is still having a serious presence in India. It is one of the most distressing problems faced by many countries worldwide. It is a serious crime against human beings and violates their fundamental or basic human rights. It inhibits the free movement of the citizens through coercion or commercial exploitation in their own country. Thus, it can occur within a country or even out of the country i.e. transnationally. In the present article, we will discuss the issue of human trafficking in detail.

WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?

• Human trafficking is a trade among all people, especially children and women.
• According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Human Trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, to exploit them for profit”.

DATA RELATED TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN INDIA

• According to the MHA, In 2020, a total of 4,966 registered cases of Human trafficking from across India, and 3661 people were charge-sheeted.
• It has led to 101 convictions and 715 acquittals, while the other cases are still pending, as per the crimes in India 2020 report by the National Crime Records Bureau.
• According to the central government, as many as seven states — Assam, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Goa, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Punjab — did not see a single conviction in such cases in 2020.
• As per India’s National Crime Record Bureau, 2278, 2208, and 1714 cases of trafficking were reported in 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively. 85.2% of the cases have been charge-sheeted.
• In 2020, 4,709 persons were victimized, out of which 2,222 were children, including 1,377 boys and 845 girls. It also projects that 2151 children were rescued, out of which 801 were girls. Among adult victims, 535 were males, and 1952 were females.

HOW SERIOUS HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN INDIA

• It is considered the second largest organized crime in India.
• Human trafficking is still a major issue in India, despite the fact that it is banned under Indian law.
• People are trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced begging, forced marriage, selling children, as well as for the removal of organs.
• Sexual exploitation is the most common form of exploitation, followed by forced labour.
• Most victims are trafficked within their countries’ borders – those trafficked abroad are moved to the richest countries.

REASON FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Several factors contribute to the trade in human beings, particularly women and children. The factors of trafficking in women and children can be divided into two categories: push and pull factors.

THE PUSH FACTORS INCLUDE:

• Poor socio-economic conditions of a large number of families, poverty coupled with frequent, almost annual natural disasters like floods leading to virtual poverty of some people, lack of education, skill and income opportunities for women in rural areas, absence of awareness about the activities of traffickers, pressure to collect money for dowries which leads to sending daughters to distant places for work, dysfunctional family life, domestic violence against women, low status of girl children, etc.
• It appears from the case studies that extreme poverty and other causes of deprivation not only push people to fall on the traffickers’ tripod but also create an incentive for trafficking. Often the prostitutes, who have no option to come out of the exploitative environment, gradually develop intimate connections with the traffickers and follow in their footsteps.

THE PULL FACTORS ARE:

• Lucrative employment propositions in big cities, easy money, promise of better pay and comfortable life by the trafficking touts and agents, the demand of young girls for marriage in other regions, demand for low-paid and underage sweatshop labour, and growing demand for young kids for adoption, rise in demand for women in the rapidly expanding sex industry, demand for young girls in places of military concentration like Kashmir in India in recent times, demand for young girls for sexual exploitation.
• The rampant practice of female feticide in the northern states of Haryana and Punjab has also fuelled internal trafficking.
• Since there is a shortage of women in these states having a low female to male ratio, they have become fertile ground for the operation of traffickers.
• Traffickers procure girls from faraway states like Assam and Orissa; trick their families into believing they are to be married, only to push them into prostitution later.
• India is also experiencing rapid changes in economic, political, demographic and labour trends as an outcome of globalization; increasing demand for cheap labour and heavy population growth in the region encourages migration, whether legal or illegal.
• The movement of young girls and women from Bangladesh and Nepal into Indian brothels is common. There is further movement of these women and girls to the Middle East and other destinations.

WHAT ARE THE PROVISIONS TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING

• Trafficking in Human Beings or Persons is prohibited under the Constitution of India under Article 23.
• The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA) is the premier legislation to prevent trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.
• Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 is a special law to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation.
• There are other specific legislations enacted relating to trafficking in women and children o Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006
• Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976
• Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986
• State Governments have also enacted specific legislations to deal with the issue. (e.g., The Punjab Prevention of Human Smuggling Act, 2012).

WHY IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING A CAUSE OF CONCERN NOWADAYS?

• The estimated number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is significantly increasing.
• There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year.
• Evolving nature of trafficking is a challenge, like the rise of technology usage and cowardly ways of committing crimes these days.
• Often cases are booked as kidnapping or missing person cases even though there is clear evidence of trafficking.
• Lack of information provided to survivors on victim compensation.
• Low investment on the part of legal aid results in very few survivors having access to compensation.
• Despite many laws present in India, human trafficking remains an unspoken problem in the country.

The conviction rate is falling.

• As per the government data, the conviction rate in Human trafficking cases has been falling over the past few years.
• The conviction rate in 2020 was 10.6%, while it was 22.5% in 2019 and 19.4 in 2018.
• In 2017, the conviction rate was 24.5% and 27.8 % in 2016.
• According to activists and NGOs working with human trafficking survivors, getting convictions in such cases is a major challenge.

WHY ARE THE PROVISIONS NOT WORKING EFFECTIVELY AGAINST TRAFFICKING?

LACK OF COORDINATION

• Getting justice for the survivors and punishing the culprits are challenging tasks and most of the time, the traffickers get away using legal loopholes.
• Like terrorism and drug trafficking, human trafficking is an organized crime involving interstate and sometimes international networks. If a person is trafficked and their kin goes to the local police station, they can only do so much to investigate the case locally as their resources are limited.

LACK OF LEGAL RESOURCES

• In such cases, where the evidence is very little, the prosecution has to rely on the statement of the survivor, who is both the victim and the witness of the crime.
• The issue of the declining rate of conviction essentially indicates there is a lack of strong and appropriate investigation that spans across state borders.
• There is also a lack of a proper rehabilitation mechanism and victim compensation for the survivors, which would encourage them to cooperate with the investigators.
• In 2018, the NIA agreed to take up human trafficking case involving two or more states, but it is still in the early stages.

VICTIMS NEED WITNESS PROTECTION

• In the case of survivors who want to take their traffickers to law, one of the major challenges is safety, as one or more chains of the network will be people who are part of their own community or village.
• There is no proper mechanism for witness protection and victim compensation. The survivors have to deal with this powerful network that is very intimidating.
• Survivors getting threats from traffickers against seeking legal measures is not uncommon. In the current system, the only protection the victim is offered is to place them in a shelter home.
• The maximum punishment in human trafficking cases is 10 years in jail, and in cases of sexual exploitation, the prison sentence can be for life.

THE ANTI-TRAFFICKING BILL 2021

ACCORDING TO THE  BILL

• Defines human trafficking as an organized crime with international implications
• The law will apply to all citizens of India, within and outside the country.
• The law shall apply to every offence of trafficking in persons with cross-border implications.
• Widens the definition of the “victim” by including transgenders, besides women and children.
• Any offence of trafficking shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years.
• More severe penalties for “aggravated offences” and seeks to crack down on organized crime syndicates.
• Aggravated offences include cases that may result in the death of the victim or where the victim suffers a grievous injury (in cases such as an acid attack), organ mutilation or removal of organs, or where the victim is a child.
• In case of the death of the victim, the Bill proposes life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 30 lakh.
• Imprisonment up to 20 years and the death penalty for the offenders found guilty.
• The investigation needs to be completed within 90 days from the date of the arrest of the accused.
• Widens the range of offenders who can be booked under the law, bringing public servants, armed forces personnel or anyone in a position of authority under its ambit. The penalty for the guilty will include life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 30 lakh.

CONCERNS WITH THE BILL

• The Bill is not clear about how the NIA, as a nodal agency, will gather information and intelligence from different parts of the country through Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) at the district level and State levels.
• Largely silent on rescue protocols except the “reason to believe” by a police officer not below the rank of a sub-inspector.
• The absence of community-based rehabilitation, missing definition of reintegration and also the funds related to rehabilitation of survivors in the Bill.

THE WAY FORWARD:

Border measures

• Stringent Enforcement of cross-border trafficking, Secure Vigilance in Trafficking routes and Proper social accountability are needed.

 Economic and social policies

• Taking measures to raise levels of social protection and to create employment opportunities.
• Taking appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment in order to ensure, on the basis of gender equality, the right to equal pay for equal work and the right to equality in employment opportunities.
• Developing programmes that offer livelihood options and include basic education, literacy, communication and other skills reduce barriers to entrepreneurship.
• Encouraging gender sensitization and education on equal and respectful relationships between the sexes, thus preventing violence against women.
• Ensuring that policies are in place that allow women equal access to and control over economic and financial resources.

Awareness-raising measures

• With the help of NGOs and Police officials, there can be some types of advertisements through the popular media in a particular location and by conducting some awareness programs in villages, local schools, among kids of the poor society and public to be alert of being victimized.

Legislative measures

• Adopting or strengthening legislative, proper law enforcement, uncorrupt officials, educational, social, cultural or other measures and, where applicable, penal legislation, including through bilateral and multilateral cooperation, to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, and that leads to trafficking.
• Enhance the capacity building of law enforcement agencies.
• Conducting workshops on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings for Police officers and for Prosecutors at the Regional level, State level and District level
• Sensitize the judicial officers about the various issues concerning human trafficking and ensure a speedy court process.

THE CONCLUSION: The issue of human trafficking in India must be addressed in a whole comprehensive manner. It requires a multi-faceted strategy to combat the menace of human trafficking in our country. While efforts include that there should be a process of rehabilitation and reintegration for all the victims of human trafficking, it should be mainly conducted. Otherwise, it will not successfully address the issue in the long run and strategically.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. Why in recent times the case of trafficking is increasing? How are technological developments encouraging it?
2. Why does the issue of human trafficking persist in India despite so many laws and awareness campaigns? Suggest some effective measures to prevent it.
3. The anti-trafficking bill 2021 is an effective law to address the issue of trafficking in India, but implementing the law is a major challenge. Comment.

THE CONTEXT: Life Expectancy at Birth is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, its current age and other demographic factors, including gender. This statistic (in terms of the Index of Representation in Longevity (IRL) and the Index of Socio-economic Inequality in Longevity (ISIL)) is vital, especially for an emerging economy like India, as the future growth prospects rest on the status of the democracy. The following article attempts to analyze the aspect of socio-economic inequities regarding longevity in India.

ABOUT LIFE EXPECTANCY AND ELDERLY POPULATION IN INDIA

• Life expectancy in India has increased from 49.7 years in 1970-75 to 68.7 years in 2012-16, as per the National Health Profile 2019. For the same period, the life expectancy for females is 70.2 years and 67.4 years for males.
• Life expectancy in India has risen from 50 (1970-75) to almost 70 years (2014-18); as a result, the number of elders (>60 years of age) is already 137 million and is expected to increase by 40% to 195 million in 2031, and 300 million by 2050.
• According to Census 2011, India has 104 million older people (60+years), constituting 8.6% of the total population. Amongst the elderly (60+), females outnumber males.
• Both the share and size of the elderly population are increasing over time. From 5.6% in 1961, the proportion increased to 8.6% in 2011. The proportion has increased to 10.1% in 2021 and is further likely to increase to 13.1% in 2031. For males, it was marginally lower at 8.2%, while for females, it was 9.0%.
• Government of India’s National Policy on Older Persons 1999, Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 and National Policy for Senior Citizens 2011 provide the legal framework for supporting the needs of seniors.
• The National Programme for Health Care of Elderly and Health and Wellness Centres under the Ayushman Bharat programme provide dedicated healthcare to the elderly in primary health care settings.

Recently, an EPW (Economic and Political Weekly) backed research analyzed the Index of Representation in Longevity (IRL) and Index of Socio-economic Inequality in Longevity (ISIL) to gain insights on the status of life expectancy and longevity. Its key focus was the elderly population in India.

THE CONCEPT OF LONGEVITY

• The concept that is generally used when it comes to measuring the length of individual lives in any society is longevity. Though it is often used as a synonym for life expectancy at a given age, it is also used to refer only to the long-lived members of a population.
• If increasing longevity is a desirable objective of any society, then achieving socio-economic equality in it is another one. However, the first step towards striving for equality in longevity in any society is to measure the existing socio-economic inequalities associated with it.
• Further, if inequality in longevity is high, the decrease in life expectancy among those of lower socio-economic status can outweigh the increase in life expectancy among those of a higher socio-economic status. For example, even if people live longer in the southern states of India owing to better performance in socio-economic indicators, it couldn’t compensate for the deteriorating status of the same age group in northern states.

INDEX OF REPRESENTATION IN LONGEVITY (IRL) AND INDEX OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN LONGEVITY (ISIL)

INDEX OF REPRESENTATION IN LONGEVITY

• The IRL is a representational measure similar to the “Distributional Fairness Index” proposed by Villemez and Rowe (1975) and the “Group-specific Index of Relative Disadvantage” proposed by Jayaraj and Subramanian (2006).
• Index of Representation in Longevity: In simple terms, in the IRL, it is comparing the proportion of the 65 years plus population of a socio-economic group in the overall 65+ population of the country to the overall proportion of the population of the same socio-economic group in the overall population of the country.
• Intuitively, any group-specific measure of inequality in longevity must be some function of how large the group’s share in total longevity (65+) is in relation to the group’s share in total population.

INDEX OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN LONGEVITY

• The ISIL, particularly well-suited for dichotomous outcomes, is a form of dissimilarity index based on the measure of the inequality of opportunities advanced by Barros et al (2009).
• Index of Socio-economic Inequality in Longevity: As in the case of the previous index, if an individual’s age is more than 65 years then they will be considered a long-living individual. The ISIL has been estimated for groups based on each characteristic (for example, groups based on caste, groups based on religion, etc.).
• The ISIL is a simple summary and representational measure of group disparities, which is expressed as a normalized, weighted sum of the absolute deviations of group-specific ave­rage longevity from the overall (whole population) average longevity.
• The ISIL can be interpreted as the number of longevity opp­ortunities that need to be rearranged from the better-off groups to the worse-off groups (in which average longevity is lower than the population average) to have equal ­average longevity in all groups.

STATUS OF INDEX OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN LONGEVITY (ISIL) IN INDIA-BASED EPW STUDY

DIMENSION

EXPLANATION

PRESENCE (NUMBERS)

• In 2004, in rural areas, 19%, 7%, 43%, and 31% of the elderly population belonged to the SC, ST, OBC, and OC (Other Caste), respectively.
• The corresponding figures for urban areas were 14%, 2%, 38%, and 46%, respectively.
• In 2012, there was some increase in the percentage of SCs and some decrease in the percentage of OCs in rural areas.

PRESENCE (RELIGION)

• In terms of religion, the percentages of Hindu and Muslim elders have almost remained unchanged in rural as well as urban areas during the study period. There has been some mild decrease in the proportion of elderly Christians in rural areas during the same period.

OCCUPATIONAL STATUS

• Rural Areas: in terms of occupation in rural areas, there was a decrease in the proportion of elderly among cultivators, agricultural labourers, businesspersons, and salaried individuals from 2004 to 2012. There was an increase in the proportion of elderly among the non-agricultural labourers, petty traders, and pensioners during the same period.
• Urban Areas: a decrease is observed in the proportion of elders involved in agricultural labour, self-employed in business, and salaried jobs during the study period, whereas an increase was observed in the proportion of elders involved in non-agricultural labour, petty trade, and pension (and rent) during the same period.

REGIONAL PRESENCE

• In rural as well as urban areas, the percentage of the elderly population was highest in the southern region and lowest in the northeastern region.
• The highest proportion of elders in the southern region is in line with the fact that the southern region comprises states that are among the most developed as far as economic and demographic indicators are concerned.
• Also, the aspect of longevity is more enhanced in southern states owing to better performance in aspects like health, clean environment, and other components of standards of living.

GROUP-SPECIFIC PROPORTION OF ELDERLY (65+ YEARS):

• Among the caste groups, the OCs have the highest proportion of elderly amongst themselves throughout as OCs comprise the socially and economically most advanced castes of India.
• The STs lay at the bottom of the pack as they are among the most disadvantaged as far as social and economic development is concerned.
• The elderly populace of the Muslim community (the majority in the minority), was the most disadvantaged, as their social, demographic and economic development was found to be at the level of the SCs and the STs in India.
• Among the occupation categories, the proportion of the elderly was highest among the pensioners.

INDEX OF REPRESENTATION IN LONGEVITY (RIL)

CONTEXT

EXPLANATION

CASTE GROUPS

• OCs are over-represented in both 2004 and 2012 in rural as well as urban areas.
• The OBCs are marginally over-represented and slightly under-represented in rural and urban areas, respectively, in 2004 as well as 2012.
• The SCs and the STs are severely under-represented (with the STs the worst off) in almost all cases (be it rural or urban) with the representation of the STs decreasing at the all-India level, which is the least among all the caste categories.

RELIGION

• Maximum representation in longevity is of the Christians at the all-India level.
• Muslims are seriously under-represented in longevity.

OCCUPATION

• Overall pensioners, cultivators and “other occupation” categories had an over-representation in longevity.
• The agricultural and non-agricultural labourers and petty traders were under-represented throughout. The lowest under-representation is seen in the case of non-agricultural labourers.

REGIONAL LEVEL

• Representation of longevity was highest in the south followed by the west and the north.
• There was an under-representation in the case of the central, east, and north-east, with the north-east being most severely under-represented.

KEY OUTCOMES (OVERALL)

• The caste-based or religion-based or occupation-based variation in longevity is relatively higher than economic class-based variation.
• About 15% of longevity opportunities need to be shifted from the better-off groups (where average longevity is higher than the average longevity for the whole population) to the worse-off groups such as non-agricultural labour, etc. (where average longevity is lower than the average longevity for the whole population) to bring equality in longevity in society at the all-India level.
• Barring the case of economic class and geographic regions, the socio-economic inequality in longevity, based on all other characteristics, was higher in urban areas compared to that rural areas.
• One of the most glaring socio-economic inequalities in longevity is observed in the case of geographic regions, where the demographically, economically, and socially advanced regions of the south and the west have an over-representation in longevity, whereas the demographically, economically and socially disadvantaged regions of the central, east and northeast have an under-representation in longevity.

ELDERLY POPULATION: CONCERNS AND POTENTIAL

• An increase in longevity and decline of joint family and breakdown in social fabric pushes seniors into loneliness and neglect.
• While one perspective looks at them as dependents, a rather different view would look at them as a potential asset, a massive resource of experienced, knowledgeable people. Integrating the elderly into the lives of communities can make a substantial contribution to improving social conditions.
• Elderly people carry immense experience in their personal and professional life which society, at large, needs to channel for a better tomorrow. Including elderly people as active contributors in the economy will prepare India for the future when a major portion of its population will be aged.
• The silver economy is the system of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services aimed at using the purchasing potential of older and ageing people and satisfying their consumption, living and health needs. The SAGE(Seniorcare Aging Growth Engine)  initiative and the SACRED (Senior Able Citizens for Re-Employment in Dignity) are some of the initiatives launched specifically to promote the silver economy.

THE WAY FORWARD:

• Policymakers need to take a cue from projects like the US’s national health initiative, “Healthy People 2000,” which seeks to increase longevity among Americans of all ages, and the UK’s “Longevity Science Advisory Panel” to provide a better chance of understanding the past and the present, for better forecasting in improvements in longevity.
• The government should also address the rampant socio-economic inequalities in the healthcare services in India which lead to different mortality rates across different groups in India, which, in turn, might lead to substantial socio-economic inequalities in longevity in India.

THE CONCLUSION: The Constitutional values along with SDGs (Goal 10) call for equality in every aspect of society. For any ideal society, how long a person lives, should not depend on factors such as caste and religion. The government should pay attention to the idea of longevity (and inequality in longevity) itself and bring it to the forefront of the public health debate in India.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

• Examine how the inequalities in longevity are present within multiple dimensions in India.
• What measures could be taken to convert the seeming ‘burden’ of the elderly populace into ‘opportunity’? Discuss in the Indian context.

THE CONTEXT: Among the many initiatives taken around the world to neutralize the gender binary, India faces its own challenge in the form of gender-caste intersectionality.

THE ISSUE: In the 2022 Gender Inequality Index, India ranked 135 out of 146

nations (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2019). India has both low rates of female labour force participation (FLFP) and large pay disparities between women and men in India. The FLFP is about 25% in rural regions and less than 20% in urban areas (Lahoti and Swaminathan 2016). The average wage of female employees is about 65% of the average male wages in 2018-2019 (Chakraborty 2020). Aside from the steps taken to improve women’s political representation, no constitutional mandate or law ensures seats for women in public-sector employment or educational institutions. Only a few states – like Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab – have introduced reservations for women in government jobs during the last decade. In terms of educational institutions, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) introduced a reservation of 20% seats for women in 2018 to correct the low levels of female participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. This measure has been quite successful in increasing the share of women, from about 14% of total seats in 2018-19 to 20% in 2020-21. Yet, a large gulf remains in achievement by the subaltern caste.

WHAT IS INTERSECTIONALITY?

The intersectionality perspective emphasizes that an individual’s social identity influences the individual’s beliefs and experiences of gender making it essential to understand gender within the context of power relations.

SOME OF THE EXAMPLES

Intersectionality of class, caste and gender and its linkages with unmet need for care. Research on economic inequality and poverty demonstrated that unequal distribution of resources manifests in unequal access to opportunities, including healthcare. Economic differences may not shape the opportunities in isolation rather than caste inequalities and

Gender biases which are rooted in the social system and interact with economic class, influence the pathways of healthcare access; some of the data in the case of gender intersectionality.

This clearly shows that a social gradient to health exists in India in the case of health outcomes.

The social gradient in health is a term used to describe the phenomenon whereby people who are less advantaged in terms of socioeconomic position have worse health (and shorter lives) than those who are more advantaged.

THIS INTERSECTIONALITY PREVAILS IN OTHER SECTORS TOO

• One of the RTI reports reveals that just 19% of the 17,000 companies had adopted the voluntary code of affirmative action for SC/ST communities. The hesitation of corporates in giving importance to caste-based hiring comes from their preference for talent over inclusion.
  • However, the need for inclusion is imperative. Despite higher education systems providing placement opportunities to Dalit students, their scarce presence in corporates’ higher management across the country is worrying.
• Many of the leaders of top companies in India have been vocal about their willingness to hire based on merit and academic performance instead of caste.
  • At the same time, a few companies like Muthoot ask for the caste of candidates in the application form.
  • A study conducted in 2012 found that over 93% of the Indian Corporate board members belong to the “upper castes”. In such a scenario, the unconscious bias of companies and especially the recruiters can hardly be ignored.
• It has been observed that most of the Dalit workers in the private sector are employed at ground level and often as unskilled labourers. The absence of Dalit members in the management body directly impacts these lower-level employees.
  • As a marginalized section, their needs and concerns remain unheard of and unresolved. This creates the condition of underrepresentation at the top level and overrepresentation at the bottom level.
• Impact of such anomaly.
• Impact on entrepreneurship: Dalit entrepreneurship has suffered due to a lack of resources as well as skills. The combined support of the government and the corporate houses is needed to boost such an entrepreneurial spirit. It is crucial to fill the gaps left by the education system through systematic training and skill development. Business houses such as Godrej and M&M are providing training facilities as well as funds to the deprived class entrepreneurs. The government has also been talking about bringing in equal opportunity legislation in the private sector along with financing for the training costs of underprivileged meritorious youth.

THE WAY FORWARD

• The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs came out with a “diversity index” that measures the workforce’s diversity in an organization. It has been found through several studies that the more diverse companies perform better financially, and consumers prefer them over those that take no stand on societal issues. Consequently, many companies have now started caste-profiling their employees. The need of the hour is a conscious effort from the corporate industry for inclusive hiring and talent development rather than just a few short-term CSR activities.

THE CONCLUSION: Despite caste-based reservations, caste-based discrimination persists, raising the question of whether alternative approaches to implementing affirmative action – other than reservations – should be considered.An alternative affirmative action strategy to reservations may be to devote more educational resources to prepare underrepresented groups for higher education students better.This approach may enhance representation while reducing negative stereotypes that women and lower caste groups have lower productivity or provide lower quality services. Enhanced representation and reduced discrimination against women and lower caste groups in high-skilled occupations can encourage competition and improve the overall quality of services.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. Deprivation cannot be reduced to one category of one social limitation. In this context, analyze the multifarious nature of deprivation in India.

THE CONTEXT: India has a long history of various states experimenting with various laws on liquor, ranging from total prohibition to restricted sale of alcohol to phased closure of liquor shops.  As liquor contributes sizeable revenue to the exchequer, it has never been an easy decision for any state government to impose the prohibition.  Presently, there are four states – Bihar, Gujarat, Nagaland and Mizoram – and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, where total prohibition is in place. This article analyses the causes behind the not-so-successful liquor prohibitions in India.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a medical condition characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences. It encompasses the conditions that some people refer to as alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, alcohol addiction, and the colloquial term, alcoholism.

THE OVERVIEW: Alcohol is a toxic and psychoactive substance with dependence-producing properties. In many of today’s societies, alcoholic beverages are a routine part of the social landscape for many in the population. This is particularly true for those in social environments with high visibility and societal influence, nationally and internationally, where alcohol frequently accompanies socializing. In this context, it is easy to overlook or discount the health and social damage caused or contributed to by drinking.

• Alcohol consumption contributes to 3 million deaths each year globally as well as to the disabilities and poor health of millions of people. Overall, the harmful use of alcohol is responsible for 5.1% of the global burden of disease.
• Harmful use of alcohol is accountable for 7.1% and 2.2% of the global burden of disease for males and females respectively. Alcohol is the leading risk factor for premature mortality and disability among those aged 15 to 49 years, accounting for 10 per cent of all deaths in this age group. Disadvantaged and especially vulnerable populations have higher rates of alcohol-related death and hospitalization.

THE HISTORY OF PROHIBITION OF LIQUOR AROUND THE WORLD

The term prohibition refers to the legal prevention of the manufacture, storage, transportation, distribution, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages with the aim of obtaining total abstinence through legal means. Prohibition and temperance have had an overlapping history in many countries since ancient times like in ancient China, Aztec civilisation and feudal Japanese society.

The anti-liquor movement in the West is nearly two centuries two-centuries-old. An abstinence pledge was introduced by churches in the United States as early as 1800. One of the landmarks in the internationalisation of the movement was the organisation of the World Prohibition Conference in London, in 1909. It was instrumental in the formation of the International Prohibition Confederation, embracing the United States, the European countries and a few other industrialised countries of the world. Nationwide prohibition was enforced in the United States in 1920 (via the 18th Amendment and National Prohibition Act). However, post-1933 a tilt towards liberalisation was seen as countries were unable to stop illicit liquor sales and were losing out on revenue. In 1933, the National Prohibition Act was repealed in the U.S.

THE CURRENT STATUS OF PROHIBITION IN THE WORLD

Most countries that introduced prohibition have withdrawn or liberalised the measure like the U.S, Japan, China etc. At present, there is a complete prohibition of liquor in 5countries in the Middle East/North Africa which include Afghanistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Sudan. Some other countries like Brunei Darussalam, Comoro, Iran, Kuwait, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria and Yemen – prohibit alcohol for Muslim citizens only. The United Arab Emirates allows for some sale of alcohol except for the region of Sharjah.

LIQUOR PROHIBITION IN INDIA

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

• Article 47: The Directive Principle in the Constitution of India states that “The state shall undertake rules to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health”.
• State Subject: Alcohol is a subject in the State list under the seventh schedule of the Indian Constitution.

OTHER PROHIBITION ACTS IN INDIA

• Bombay Abkari Act, 1878: The first hint at the prohibition of liquor was through the Bombay Abkari Act, 1878 (in the Province of Bombay). This Act dealt with the levying of duties on intoxicants, among other things and aspects of prohibition via amendments made in 1939 and 1947.
• Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949: There were “many lacunae” in the Bombay Abkari Act, 1878, from the point of view of the government’s decision to enforce prohibition. This led to the birth of the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949. The Supreme Court (SC) upheld the Act broadly barring a few sections in 1951 in the judgment of the State of Bombay and Ors. vs FN Balsara (1951).
• Gujarat Prohibition Act, 1949: Gujarat adopted the prohibition policy in 1960 and subsequently chose to enforce it with greater rigidity, but also made processes easier for foreign tourists and visitors to get liquor permits. In 2011, the Act was renamed as Gujarat Prohibition Act. In 2017, the Gujarat Prohibition (Amendment) Act was passed with the provision of up to ten years in jail for manufacturing, purchase, sale and transportation of liquor in the dry state.
• Bihar Prohibition Act, 2016: The Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act was brought into effect in 2016. Over 3.5 lakh people have been arrested under the stringent prohibition law since 2016, leading to crowded jails and clogged courts.
• Other States: Alcohol prohibition in India is in force in the states of Mizoram, and Nagaland as well as in the union territory of Lakshadweep

RATIONALE BEHIND PROHIBITION OF LIQUOR

HEALTH BENEFITS

• Drinking liquor places an adverse impact on human health. It diminishes the utility and functioning of the vital organs of the body, especially the liver and kidney. According to the WHO, the harmful use of alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions and globally 3 million death occur every year due to harmful use of alcohol (5.3% of all deaths).

CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION

• Article 47 of the Constitution directs the State to take measures to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health. Further, the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health.

CURB GENDER VIOLENCE

• Several studies have pointed out a direct correlation between consumption of alcohol and gender violence, including in the domestic setting. A study in Bihar found that 40% of ever-married women aged between 15 and 49 reported that they experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence by their husbands during the previous 12 months.
• Proponents argue that the prohibition of liquor has the potential to bring down the levels of intimate partner violence. A study conducted in Bihar has supported the argument e.g., there has been a 28.9% reduction in crimes against women in Bihar between 2016-2019 (after prohibition)

REDUCTION IN CRIM

• A reduction in alcohol consumption is also desired to reduce crime in society as intoxication impairs an individual’s ability to distinguish between right and wrong.
• A report by the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) on prohibition in Bihar noted there was a 66.6% dip in cases of kidnapping for ransom, followed by a 28.3% dip in murder cases and 2.3% in dacoity.

ECONOMIC STRESS

• Addiction to alcohol creates severe hardships, especially for poor families as the male members tend to spend more on alcohol due to their excessive addiction. This in turn reduces the budget for spending on essential items and in many cases pushes the family into borrowing.
• The 1992 Anti-arrack movement that took place in Andhra Pradesh is a testimony to this. The money saved due to the prohibition of liquor is used more productively, e.g., the ADRI study pointed out that 19% of households acquired new assets from the money they earlier splurged on alcohol.

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE PROHIBITION OF LIQUOR

RIGHT TO CHOICE

• A total ban goes against an individual’s right to choice and undermines a person’s freedom.

ECONOMIC LOSS

• The Indian Made Foreign Liquors (IMFL) industry contributes over INR 1 lakh crore in taxes every year. It supports the livelihood of 35 lakh farming families and provides direct and indirect employment to lakhs of workers employed in the industry. It also supports hundreds of ancillary industries in glass, tin, plastic and paper with a turnover of Rs 6,000-7,000 crore.
• Moreover, complete prohibition has a negative impact on the tourism and hospitality sectors.

BOOTLEGGING

• Failure of effective implementation gives rise to bootlegging (the illegal production, transport and sale of liquor). Liquor mafias emerge which keep on supplying illicit liquor (with no quality checks) to the masses. This defeats the purpose of the prohibition of liquor and gives rise to organized crime as well.

HEALTH IMPACTS

• Many people lose their lives by consuming poor-quality illicit liquor (hooch). News reports indicate that as many as 60 people have died after consuming hooch in Bihar since November 2021. Alcohol prohibition may also lead people into consuming other substances which are easy to smuggle and may result in greater health and social consequences.

POPULIST MEASURE

• Critics argue that Alcohol prohibition is merely used as a political card, especially to woo women, voters. However, it doesn’t solve their problems as people addicted to alcohol end up consuming hooch and other illegal alcoholic substances whose impact is similar or even worse than legally manufactured alcohol.

THE CHEQUERED HISTORY OF LIQUOR BAN IN INDIA

• Gujarat (which has been under prohibition for most of its existence) has a thriving illegal liquor industry. For reference, neighbouring Daman has a per capita consumption of 56 litres per annum against the national average of just 4.3 litres per annum. It is estimated that the state loses revenue to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore annually. Off-late Gujarat has diluted prohibition to contain negative fall out on tourism and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) sector.
• Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala too have experimented with prohibition at different times but abolished it due to its ineffectiveness. Prohibition did not solve the problem of alcohol consumption—it only drove it underground. In recent times Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur have also overturned years-old prohibition policies due to their failure.
• Maharashtra has archaic laws of permits to drink (bars are called ‘permit rooms’) despite the fact that it has never been enforced. It now intends to enforce permits for small private parties at home. Similarly, there are inexplicable limits on the stocking of alcohol for personal consumption. Such ad-hocism prevents a consistent public policy aimed at creating a culture of responsible drinking.
• Bihar introduced complete prohibition in April 2016. While it certainly has led to a reduction in alcohol consumption, the related social, economic, and administrative costs have been far too much to justify gains. Prohibition crippled the judicial administration. So far over 2.14 lakh cases have been registered under the Act; 2.55 lakh people have been booked and 1.67 lakh arrests have been made. Nearly 40,000 bail applications are pending in the High Court, which has expressed its anguish at the turn of events and questioned how it can deal with this enormous pendency. Ironically, liquor sales in districts in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal bordering Bihar have seen a sharp rise.

CASE STUDY FROM BIHAR

• Ever since the Janata Dal (United) government banned liquor in 2016, drug use has gone up among young Biharis. Heroin, ganja, charas, and intravenous drugs have been the refuge of addicts in the state. A UDAYA study found that consumption was higher among rural boys (21 per cent) in Bihar than urban ones (17 per cent). Police in Seemanchal’s districts says petty crimes have also risen, as have the recovery of drugs, phones and cough syrup bottles.
• And yet, nobody seems to be doing anything about it. Economically poor and socially backward, Seemanchal sends its children to Delhi, Kolkata, and other big cities for better education and jobs each year. Some leave as migrant workers and some as government job seekers. But when the nationwide lockdown was announced in 2020, the young returned with no jobs and no work. With them, entered different types of addiction, drugs and boredom.

THE ANALYSIS – OF WHY THE LIQUOR PROHIBITION IS NOT EFFECTIVE

LESSONS OF HISTORY

• Those who support alcohol prohibition point at the dangers of drinking, the lives it has destroyed and the misery it has caused. They no doubt have a point, but that only indicates that alcohol consumption should be regulated in the public interest, not that it be totally prohibited. Historical experience has shown that liquor bans are ineffective and even counter-productive, and only give rise to crime and deaths by consumers drinking illicit liquor. Experience has shown that bans seldom work. They just push the alcohol consumption underground which then brings the criminal element into the picture.

PREVALENCE OF CORRUPTION

• Generally, the local officials form a nexus with the liquor mafia and overlook the underground activities. This police-mafia nexus problem is not limited to India, this had been evident in the US as well during the period of prohibition (1920-33).

DYNAMIC MODUS OPERANDI

• The modus operandi of unlawful players keeps on changing from time to time. The places of production, mode of transportation, and code languages keep on changing which are very difficult to detect.

SUPPORT BY NEIGHBOURING REGIONS

• The liquor gets smuggled from the neighbouring states, e.g., Daman (neighbouring Gujarat) has a per capita consumption of 56 litres per annum against the national average of just 4.3 litres per annum. The data show it plays a key role in meeting the demand of Gujarat.

HUGE SUPPLY OF WORKFORCE

• There is a huge supply of unemployed youth who want to make quick money by smuggling illicit liquor. The youth who get caught are quickly replaced. Further bail can be easily obtained due to nexus with officials.

HIGH DEGREE OF ADDICTION

• The ban doesn’t reduce the demand for alcohol but rather intensifies it. People are willing to risk their lives and drink illicit liquor just to satisfy their addiction. In Bihar, the prohibition indirectly increased the use of drugs and other harmful substances among those who could not get hold of alcohol.

The demand for alcohol is inelastic, i.e. whatever the price of alcohol, we can always find a crowd at every alcohol shop. So, when a law is established prohibiting the manufacturing or sale of alcohol, it impacts the supply side of the market. Basically, a law like Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act 2016 (BPEA), hardly influences the demand side of the market, which is inelastic in nature. The result is that, in a new market equilibrium, there is a negligible reduction in the consumption of alcohol, but the price of alcohol rises. It can be said that the law can actually worsen the lives of families of alcohol addicts, instead of making them better off.

Prohibitory laws cannot alter the demand side of the alcohol market. Instead of making laws, the government should work towards something that would influence the demand side of the consumer. One alternative is to disseminate awareness among people at the village or panchayat level. Awareness drives can help in reducing the demand.

Mere law passed in an assembly by a few people can’t bring social change. If the government had spent just 50% of the revenue it receives from the duties on alcohol on educating people about the hazardous effects of alcohol, it could have brought a better change in the lives of the people and society.

THE WAY FORWARD:

• The idea of prohibition is a classic example of tail-chasing. It is a short-sighted idea which can only get rid of the symptoms, and facilitate ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but can never truly manage to cure the disease. And what is the disease anyway? Linking domestic abuse with increased alcohol consumption is perhaps like being overconfident and assuming the problem is incredulously simple. Domestic abuse by men who squander their limited incomes on alcohol and then come home to beat their wives, or engage in other crimes, and its connection with alcohol consumption needs more research.
• The belief that banning alcohol would check issues related to alcoholism is a very simplistic notion, whereas in reality, the situation is much more complex. Between issues such as morality, prohibition or freedom of choice, also are factors like economy, jobs, etc, which cannot be ignored. What is required is an informed and constructive dialogue on the causes and effects.
• Policymakers should focus on framing laws which encourage responsible behaviour and compliance. The drinking age should be made uniform across the country and no person below that should be permitted to buy alcohol. Tough laws should be made against drunken behaviour in public, domestic violence under the influence, and drinking and driving. Besides, governments should set aside part of revenue earned from alcohol for social education, de-addiction, and community support.
• The point is we know that sugar is bad for health. Should we just ban it or instead get people to consume it less by way of creating awareness?

THE CONCLUSION: Prohibition risks bringing the double whammy of the loss of tax revenues and the need for increased spending on enforcement. Laws work best when they are reformative, not retributive. The mindset of the people cannot be changed overnight and less so through inefficacious policy levers that infringe on individual freedom. That will just make it costlier for people to make mistakes and learn about their preferences through trial and error. On the other hand, higher taxes on alcohol might give the state a chance to bring reforms to their societies which are both progressive and prescient.

Mains Practice Questions:

1. Evidence from Indian experiments shows that a liquor ban does not lead to desired changes. Comment.
2. Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law. Critically analyse the utility of using physical and financial resources to implement the provisions of the alcohol prohibition laws in India.

THE CONTEXT: Many developing countries have reorganized their subnational administrative boundaries as a part of administrative reforms and decentralization. Theoretically, administrative proliferation can lead to better developmental outcomes by better managing ethnic heterogeneity, bringing public services closer to people, and better matching services to local preferences. This article analyzes the demographic and developmental outcomes of such administrative proliferation in India.

THE OVERVIEW: In a bid to arrive at the optimal population size in a local government unit, many national governments have reorganized their sub-national boundaries and have implemented vast decentralization reforms with an explicit goal to improve governance. The fundamental argument for decentralized administration is that there is heterogeneity in demand for public services. The variance in preferences can be better understood and catered to by a government that is closer to the citizens, thus raising well-being throughout society. Small jurisdictions have an information advantage and hence they can tailor their services, tax appropriately, and raise welfare. In addition, it also enhances the capability of the citizens to monitor their government and hold the responsibility of the public official to better match local preferences.

ADMINISTRATIVE PROLIFERATION:

●Administrative proliferation is the creation of new administrative units by the splitting of existing ones at subnational levels. Although administrative proliferation may be associated with decentralization reforms, it is a distinct policy choice. Decentralization involves the devolution of responsibility, authority, and resources to lower-level governmental units, while administrative proliferation only creates new governmental units without changing the underlying power structure.

● Many developing countries create new districts as a part of their administrative reforms process, also referred to as administrative proliferation or government fragmentation.

WHY ADMINISTRATIVE PROLIFERATION?

• Administrative proliferation may claim some of the theoretical benefits of decentralization as it brings citizens closer to their administrators. Each administrative unit is smaller and more homogeneous—with less heterogeneity in preferences, they are able to provide better services to citizens. Splitting of administrative units also may reduce the bargaining power of each unit.
• Another consideration in the creation of administrative units is the management of ethnic diversity. Ethnic politics constitutes a crucial dimension of public life and serves as an intermediary between public administration and the economic well-being of citizens, especially in cases where multiple hierarchically nested administrative units interact to provide public goods. In ethnically diverse states it is common to devolve power to subnational units as a compromise between the demands of territorially concentrated ethnic groups and the need to preserve the higher-level territorial integrity.

ADMINISTRATIVE PROLIFERATION IN INDIA

Administrative proliferation in India has been occurring since Independence, but it has picked up pace since the enactment of the decentralization reforms in 1992. India enacted extensive decentralization reforms with a constitutional amendment in 1992. Until the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution, the structure of government in India was two-tiered, with the union and state governments—and the district level administrators performing such tasks as assigned to them by the state governments, such as rural development programs. With the passing of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, the local government units became the third tier of government. The local government units are themselves of three levels – district level, 220 sub-district (taluka) level and village (panchayat) level.

According to the 2011 Census, between 2001-2011 alone as many as 46 districts were added within that time. Since the 2011 Census, approximately 100 districts have been added in India.

• In 2021 Punjab created Malerkotla as its 23rd district.
• The surge in a number of districts is mostly due to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh into A.P. and Telangana in 2014. Telangana at present has 33 districts and Andhra Pradesh has 26 districts (13 new districts were created in 2022).
• Most recently in August 2022, WEST BENGAL also announced for creation 7 new districts.

ADVANTAGES OF CREATING NEW DISTRICTS IN INDIA

• Better administration and governance: This is one of the foremost advantages stated by state governments during the creation of new districts. To some extent, it is also true.
• The smaller district ensures better governance: New districts will host a range of administrative machinery in the district. This will result in better implementation of government schemes, proper fund utilization, enhanced coverage of schemes, etc. All this will improve governance in the new district.
• Service to the increased population: Since 1981, the average district area has become 44% smaller in 2019. But, the average number of people in a district has risen from 16.6 lakh to 18.6 lakh in 2019. So the new districts can ensure better service delivery for the increased population.
• Bring administration closer to the people: Bigger districts hinder the administration process in some areas of that district itself. For example, before the bifurcation of the Amravati district, the farthest taluka was around 150 km from the district headquarters. So, administrative officers in taluka have to travel nearly 3 hours to district headquarters. A new district can bring the administration closer to the people.
• District-specific government initiatives: New districts might attract more district-specific schemes. For example, the government can set up an agricultural research and assistance centre or a residential school for gifted children. The state government can provide better funding for backward districts. This will benefit the local population.
• Increase employment: Since the new district will require new officials from the top-down, this will increase the employment in government directly. It will also spur employment opportunities indirectly. For example, government tender and associated employment for locals, new shops and services near government buildings, etc.

DEMOGRAPHIC AND DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROLIFERATION

The district bifurcations are beneficial for the overall district – and especially newly created districts – in terms of economic output. There could be two underlying reasons for the observed outcomes – it may be arising due to the greater homogeneity in population distribution after the split, or due to the redistributive benefits of bifurcation.

• After the bifurcation, both the child and the parent region tend to be more homogeneous than before. When compared with a similar district that was never split, both child and parent districts do better in terms of economic outcomes. This suggests that the greater homogeneity in population distribution and preferences after the split could be playing a part in the observed positive outcomes.
• However, the child regions do better than the parent regions in the post-bifurcation period. This is reasonable to expect because the villages in the child district gain an additional advantage of having a new administrative setup built closer to them. This is consistent with the idea that reducing the distance between citizens and administrative centres could lead to better outcomes. [The parent region already has an established administrative system, and therefore the redistributive effects due to the creation of a new district headquarters do not come into play in the parent district. The observed benefit to the child region over the parent region seems to suggest that the positive outcomes are due to redistributive benefits.]

CHALLENGES IN THE CREATION OF NEW DISTRICTS IN INDIA

Creating a number of districts without any rationale can be challenging. This is due to various reasons such as,

• The very process of creating one district is challenging: The government has to find office space for different departments and fill many new positions. All this will require a huge government expenditure. The government will also face challenges with land acquisition.
• Substitute for genuine decentralization: Zilla Parishad and the Panchayat Samiti do not enjoy a lot of power in many states. So, these officials take most of their grievances to the collector. Creating smaller districts without empowering these bodies does not conform to the idea of decentralization in the real sense.
• The increased cost of living in new districts: The growth centres created in new district headquarters will also make the land rates and other service costs go up. This will increase the cost of living in the new district headquarters in the long run.
• Political motive: Many states reorganize the existing districts and form new ones due to political motives. However, the 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission stated that the political gains from forming a new district are a “minor dividend” and not the major one.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUE

• In democratic societies, small jurisdictions are believed to enhance political participation, make politics less abstract, politicians more responsive, and facilitate exit-based empowerment of citizens. Decentralization may promote responsiveness and effectiveness of the government as it enhances the capability of the citizens to monitor their government and aligns the incentive structure facing the public official. Decentralization will increase economic efficiency as local governments have an information advantage and can respond better to variance in preferences at the local level and population mobility will lead to competition between local authorities and better provision of public goods [One District, One Product; Aspirational District Programme; Swachh Bharat Mission etc will incentivise the general public in a more comprehensive way].
• Decentralized service delivery especially when citizens directly elect the local governments is expected to provide better coverage, quality, and efficiency. Competing local governments may experiment with various ways to provide public goods and lead to innovations [ making use of locally available resources, traditional knowledge and manpower] that can also be applied/replicated elsewhere.
• Local government proliferation also brings citizens closer to their government and may engender a better match between the supply and demand of public goods and services.
• At the same time, there is a counter argument in favour of larger jurisdiction sizes because larger units allow for economies of scale in providing public goods. Local bureaucracies may be poorly staffed and ill-equipped to handle the responsibilities associated with the decentralized provision of public goods [such as in cases of natural disasters and climate change-related issues which impact a larger geographical area and needs more coordinated efforts at a large scale]. Making each unit smaller and increasing the number of units, may increase the total cost of coordination and cooperation.
• There is also the possibility that the newly created administrative units may struggle to generate resources due to poorer administrative capability, thus leading to subpar public good provision. Thus critics also argue that the effectiveness of decentralization measures/administrative proliferation is often hampered by the particular context of its implementation, which may or may not always lead to better outcomes.

THE WAY FORWARD:

1. Ensure proper decentralization: Instead of creating new districts every time, the State governments might reform their decentralization policy as the Panchayats and Zillas face many challenges in their functioning. If the state government provides more powers this will improve the functioning of Panchayats and Zilla Parishad. For example,

• Creation of SFCs(State Finance Commission) properly and allocating funds properly.
• Widening their tax base and providing access to the Capital market to raise funds.
• State Governments should provide local bodies with the power to recruit personnel to fulfil their functions properly.

2. Guidelines for the formation of new districts: With new districts added every year, the Center may prescribe certain criteria for the formation of a new district. For example, the Center may release a guideline that contains the minimum area of the district, its population, etc.
3. Work on other alternatives: Instead of creating new infrastructure, the States may conduct special camps and frequent field visits from officials. This will not only save the government exchequer but also serve the majority of the administrative and governance targets.
4. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are key instruments for achieving higher competitiveness in the economy and improving the social living standard of the citizens. Wide usage and incorporation of ICT in these two directions are targeted to achieve innovative, sustainable and associative growth, which is envisaged.
5. The present times is an era of technology and underlining the benefits of technology as demonstrated during the time of the pandemic, the union government is working to provide high-speed internet to every village and it is imperative to invest even further in technology and innovation, which will help in better administration and good governance initiatives, reducing the need for further bifurcation of the districts.
6. Parallel steps to enhance the Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency of the public offices will further enhance the overall functioning of the administration along with the administrative proliferation which indeed helps in bringing the government and administration closer to the people.

THE CONCLUSION: Administrative proliferation as a policy measure has mixed results with specific public service measures such as education, sanitation, water supply, or maternal health. Compared to districts that are not split, split districts (parent and child) are better off in terms of economic outcomes. However, the child regions have an advantage over the parent regions in the post-bifurcation period. Government functions are many and varied and the effect of population size on one of those functions might not be the same as that on others. The demographic and developmental outcomes may fall off the line with the conceived notions of administrative proliferation at lower levels of population per administrative unit.

Mains Practice Question:

1. What are the reasons for creating new districts in the state? are they helping in administrative ease or just a populist measure?
2. Does the concept of administrative proliferation conform to the idea of a leviathan state? In the era of minimum government, maximum governance justifies the idea of creating more administrative centres in the state.
3. Do newly added districts yield desired governance results? critically analyze.

The context: Recently, the National Report of the 2nd phase of the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) was released. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted on a representative sample of households throughout India. The following article would analyse the survey and highlight its findings from the UPSC perspective.

HISTORY OF NFHS

The main objective of each successive round of the NFHS has been to provide high-quality data on health and family welfare and emerging issues in this area.

NFHS-1:

The NFHS-1 was conducted in 1992-93.

NFHS-2:

The NFHS-2 was conducted in 1998-99 in all 26 states of India.

The project was funded by the USAID, with additional support from UNICEF.

The NFHS-3: carried out in 2005-2006

NFHS-3 funding was provided by the USAID, the Department for International Development (UK), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, UNFPA, and the Government of India.

The NFHS-4: Conducted in 2014-2015

In addition to the 29 states, NFHS-4 included all six union territories for the first time and provided estimates of most indicators at the district level for all 640 districts in the country as per the 2011 census.

NFHS-5: KEY IMPROVEMENTS FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS

The NFHS-4 survey covered a range of health-related issues, including fertility, infant and child mortality, maternal and child health, perinatal mortality, adolescent reproductive health, high-risk sexual behaviour, safe injections, tuberculosis, and malaria, non-communicable diseases, domestic violence, HIV knowledge, and attitudes toward people living with HIV. The NFHS-5 has made certain improvements over the earlier versions.

ASPECT/CONTEXT

EXPLANATION

SCOPE OF NFHS-5

• NFHS-5 has expanded in respect of the earlier round of the survey (NFHS-4) by adding new dimensions:

o   NFHS-5 includes some new topics, such as preschool education, disability, access to a toilet facility, death registration, bathing practices during menstruation, and methods and reasons for abortion.

o   Also, NFHS-5 has additional components of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), and an expanded age range for measuring hypertension and diabetes among all aged 15 years and above.

TRACKING SDGS

• NFHS-5 provides information on important indicators which are helpful in tracking the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country.

TRACKING SOCIAL STATUS

• The NFHS-5 report also provides data on socioeconomic and other background characteristics; useful for policy formulation and effective programme implementation.

INFLUENCING PUBLIC POLICIES

• Besides providing evidence for the effectiveness of ongoing programmes, the data from NFHS-5 help in identifying the need for new programmes with an area-specific focus and identifying groups that are most in need of essential services.

NFHS-5: KEY FINDINGS

DIMENSION

FINDING

USE OF FAMILY PLANNING METHODS 

• Use of family planning methods increased; most states reduce their fertility rate, below the target of 2.1
• All states (except Mizoram) have seen an increase in the use of family planning methods. Goa (42%-point) and Bihar (32%-point) have seen the highest increase in the use of family planning methods.

FERTILITY RATES

• Consequently, most states have seen a decrease in the total fertility rate (TFR). Bihar’s TFR has declined from 3.4 (in NFHS-4) to 3. All other media and large states in the survey (i.e., population above 1 crore) have a TFR below the replacement level rate of 2.1.

SEX RATIO AT BIRTH

• The sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years is below 950 for seven (of the 17) states. The sex ratio at birth is the number of female children born per 1,000 male children born. In three states, the ratio is below 900 (Goa: 838, Himachal Pradesh: 875, and Telangana: 894).
• The ratio has declined in seven states. The most notable decline was in Goa (from 966 to 838), and Kerala (from 1,047 to 951). Only Tripura has a sex ratio at birth above 1,000 (i.e., more females born than males).

INSTITUTIONAL BIRTHS

• In 7 states, more than 90% of the births in the last five years were institutional births. In Kerala, nearly 100% of the births were institutional births. Only 46% of the births in Nagaland were institutional births.
• The average out-of-pocket expenditure on delivery in a public health facility increased in 8 of the 17 states. Note that in West Bengal, the average expenditure on deliveries declined by Rs 5,236 per delivery (66% of the cost in 2015-16), and the proportion of institutional births increased from 75% to 92%.

INFANT MORTALITY RATE & NUTRITIONAL ASPECTS OF CHILDREN

• Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has declined across states; however, malnourishment among children is increasing. IMR has marginally declined in nearly all states. Assam has seen one of the largest drops in IMR, from 48 deaths (per 1,000 live births) to 32 deaths. IMR remains high in Bihar (47 deaths per 1,000 live births).
• However, the nutritional status of children below 5 years of age is worsening. Stunting or chronic malnutrition (i.e., low height with respect to age) has increased in 11 of the 17 states.
• The proportion of severely wasted children has increased in 13 of the 17 states.   Wasting or acute malnutrition refers to low weight with respect to height. Children who are stunted or wasted are more vulnerable to diseases and illness.
• The proportion of children who are underweight (low weight with respect to age) has increased in 11 of the 17 states. In Bihar and Gujarat, 40% or more of the children under the age of five years are underweight.

ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY, IMPROVED SOURCE OF DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION

• The proportion of households with electricity and improved drinking water source has increased across all states. Households with improved sanitation facilities have also increased across all states. 99% of households in Kerala have an improved sanitation facility, while only 49% of households have it in Bihar.
• Similarly, the proportion of households using clean fuel for cooking has also increased across nearly all states. Telangana has seen a nearly 25%-point increase in access to improved sanitation facilities and clean cooking fuel as compared to NFHS-4.

DISTRIBUTION OF INTERNET ACCESS

• More women using mobile phones across all states; however, many of them do not have access to the internet
• The proportion of women who have a mobile phone has increased across all states.   However, only about 50% of women own and use a mobile phone in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, and West Bengal.
• The Survey also measured the proportion of men and women (15-49 years of age) who have ever used the internet. Across all states, the proportion of men who have used the internet was higher than women, with the difference being higher than 25%-point in states such as Telangana, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh. In Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Tripura, less than 25% of women have used the internet.

ACCESS TO MENSTRUAL HYGIENE

• The use of hygienic methods of protection during the menstrual period has increased across states
• The Survey measured the proportion of women (15-24 years) who are using hygienic methods of protection during their menstrual period. This has increased across almost all states. The largest increase was seen in Bihar and West Bengal (28%-point). However, it still remains low in Bihar (59%), Assam and Gujarat (66%).

NFHS: AN OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS

FINDING

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Contraceptive use:

Only 50.7 percent of women in the lowest wealth quintile used modern contraceptives, compared to 58.7 percent of women in the highest quintile.

• While the data shows that the knowledge of contraceptives is pretty much universal (99 percent of married men and women in both rural and urban India knew of them), only a little over 50 percent of the currently married population opts for contraceptives.
• Their usage is also determined by employment status and income level.

The onus of family planning:

37.9 per cent of married women between the ages of 15 to 49 underwent female sterilisation. This is nearly 2 percent more than in 2015-16.

• The onus of family planning still heavily leans on women, and far from modern contraceptives easing the burden of female sterilisation, the practice has only gone up.
• There isn’t much difference in this as far as rural and urban sphere are concerned.

Low fertility rates:

The trends in fertility of residence (TFR) are down across communities, however, the fall in TFR among Muslims has been the sharpest at 2.36 children per woman as compared to 2.62 kids per woman in 2015-16.

• The numbers are lower, yet vary across caveats of religious groups, communities, and states.
• The decline continues the downward trend in India’s fertility rate over the last few decades.

Anaemia remains a major concern:

57 percent of all women aged 15-49 years were found to be anaemic, whereas 25 percent of men in the same age group have anaemia.

• While there has been a 4 percent rise in anaemia in women compared to 2015-16, there has been a 3 percent rise among men.
• India has not been effectively able to tackle the burden of anaemia and remains a concern across age groups, sexes and social strata. The government will have to prioritize a more aggressive approach to tackle this issue going forth.

Obesity is on the rise:

24 percent of women and 22.9 percent of men were found to be overweight or obese (BMI ≥25.0 kg/m2), which is 4 percent higher than in 2015-16.

• While obesity seems to have gone up in both men and women, fewer people in the same age groups are underweight as compared to 2015-16.

THE WAY FORWARD:

• Considering the huge population size and profound demographic diversity in the country, context-specific policy and programmes will be needed for states, passing through different stages of the demographic transition. There must be a more focused approach towards aspects like eliminating anaemia and providing easy access to contraceptives.
• There has to be an accelerated coverage of national programmes such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, Ujjawala Scheme, PMMVY (Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana), and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao mission.
• Lower TFR usually comes with economic development and greater education, particularly those policies that pave the way for women’s education and employment. States like Kerala have recorded declining TFR due to this, and thus, it becomes a role model for states like Bihar which hasn’t fared well as compared to its southern counterparts.

THE CONCLUSION: While there is much to celebrate in the NFHS-5 data, especially the fact that the Total Fertility Rate has come down to 2.0, our focus should now be to reach the unreached. We must do more for the marginalized sections of society, who may be underprivileged on the basis of class, identity or geography.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. Discuss a few significant findings of the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) in the context of health and inclusivity of women in India.
2. “While there is much to celebrate in the NFHS-5 data, we must do more for the marginalized sections of the society, who may be underprivileged on the basis of class, identity or geography.” Examine critically in the context of the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey.

THE CONTEXT: The Indian PM attended the inaugural leaders’ meeting of a new alliance called I2U2 made up of Israel, India, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States in July 2022. In this article, we will analyse this new organisation and its various implications from the UPSC perspective.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT I2U2

WHAT IS I2U2?

• I2U2, often known as the “West Asian Quad,” is an acronym representing India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.
• When Indian External Affairs Minister Visited Israel in October 2021, the foreign ministers of the four nations met.
• At that time, the organisation was known as the “International Forum for Economic Cooperation.”
• The countries have said there is no military angle to their cooperation and are pushing a constructive agenda focused on the economy, especially infrastructure projects.

WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES OF I2U2?

• The I2U2’s aim is to discuss “common areas of mutual interest, to strengthen the economic partnership in trade and investment in their respective regions and beyond.”
• I2U2  aims to encourage joint investments in six mutually identified areas such as:

• • water,
  • energy,
  • transportation,
  • space,
  • health, and
  • food security.

• It intends to mobilise private sector capital and expertise to help:
• modernise the infrastructure,
• low carbon development pathways for the industries,
• improve public health, and
• the development of critical emerging and green technologies.

THE OUTCOMES OF THE I2U2 SUMMIT

The UAE has launched a two-billion-dollar investment in a series of Integrated Food Parks across India. These parks will use cutting-edge climate-smart technologies to prevent food waste and spoilage, save fresh water, and use renewable energy sources. India will supply suitable acreage for the project and would help farmers integrate into the food parks. The private sectors of the United States and Israel will be invited to contribute their expertise and new solutions to the project’s overall sustainability. These investments will aid in increasing crop yields and combating food insecurity in South Asia and the Middle East.The I2U2 also announced that it would advance a hybrid renewable energy project in Gujarat consisting of 300 megawatts (M.W.) of wind and solar capacity complemented by a battery energy storage system.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS FOR THE COUNTRIES FROM I2U2?

FOR USA

• The I2U2 will enable Washington to expand and restore partnerships that suffered during the Donald Trump regime and also reframe relationships in the Middle East.

FOR INDIA

• India will benefit from backing the I2U2 as it allows New Delhi to play a greater global role and deepen ties with the Middle East, an area it views significantly because of its energy and economic interests and a large diaspora presence. (Read Ahead)

FOR UAE

• The bloc presents the UAE with an opportunity to get an edge in the Persian Gulf — the maritime route that sees most of Asia’s oil passing through.

FOR ISRAEL

• For Israel, the I2U2 is a chance to improve ties with the Arab world. Israel will look to New Delhi’s assistance in bridging differences between Israel and other Arab countries and resolving problems that have made the region volatile for decades.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPLICATIONS OF I2U2

BRIDGE ACROSS THE RELIGIONS

• By highlighting their shared commitment to pluralism and cooperation across faiths, I2U2 could become a venue for cooperation on a variety of other initiatives.
• An I2U2 that advances pluralism across its member states could also encourage the practice of related values — including protections for minority, religious and human rights — within them as well.

BROADER VISION FOR WORLD ORDER

• In addition, the shift would offer the Biden administration a means to broaden its vision of world order from one that is primarily defined by “democracy versus authoritarianism” to one that considers other important features of national identity and helps to build different sorts of bridges with strategic but undemocratic partners like the UAE.

BALANCING ACT FOR UAE

• The UAE is working to become one of the most globally connected players in the region.
• One of the pillars of this strategy is to pivot to Asia. But in contrast to the U.S. pivot to Asia aiming at confronting China, the UAE considers China one of its main partners in achieving this objective.
• I2U2 is also one of the ways the UAE is balancing its relations with its two main Asian partners: China and India.

HOW IS INDIA GOING TO BE BENEFITED FROM THE I2U2?

CAPITAL AND TECHNOLOGY MOBILISATION

• India sees clear and tangible benefits from the I2U2, starting with the group’s first two announcements: a $2 billion investment and technological assistance for agricultural initiatives in two Indian states, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh; and support for a hybrid renewable energy project in Gujarat.
• Indian companies are keen to participate in this project and contribute to India’s goal of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030. Such projects have the potential to make India a global hub for alternate supply chains in the renewable energy sector.
• I2U2 thus offers a model and platform for sustained mobilisation of capital from the UAE that is supported by Israeli and American technologies and championed by Washington.

DIPLOMATIC PLATFORM FOR NORMALISING TIES

• Given India’s close ties to both Israel and the UAE, New Delhi sees the I2U2 as a diplomatic tool for accelerating, deepening, and ensuring the ongoing normalisation of relations between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi.
• Israel provides key military technologies to India, but previous generations of Indian officials downplayed those defence links, partly for internal political reasons and partly to appease their Arab neighbours.

STRATEGIC AUTONOMY MAINTENANCE

• I2U2 offers India an opportunity to cooperate with the United States on its own terms: not as a junior associate or a formal ally, but as a self-confident and “strategically autonomous” partner.
• I2U2’s emphasis on voluntary economic initiatives rather than binding multilateral trade deals (like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) that India has repeatedly rejected is also attractive.
• In this respect, I2U2 resembles Washington’s new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which India has also joined.

WHAT ARE THE POTENTIAL RISKS AREAS FOR THE GROUP?

The UAE and India are focused on pursuing economic cooperation through I2U2, and it seems that the United States and Israel are willing to go along with this approach. However, it is not clear whether any of them will introduce geopolitical objectives to I2U2 in the future. This would be problematic as the countries in the group have conflicting positions on how to deal with China, Russia and Iran, which may affect the future of the group and its prospects of success. The UAE, in particular, will strive to avoid this risk. Israel’s ambassador to India stressed that the group is “not against anyone,” adding that “it’s for our people and for making the world a better place,” an important message that was not echoed widely enough.

THE WAY FORWARD:

• The Jerusalem Declaration signed during the Biden visit to the Middle East reflects the strength of Israeli relations with the United States. I2U2 is also a demonstration of the extent to which the United States is committed to advancing Israel’s integration in the region. This can help the movement towards greater peace and progress in the region.
• Although the cooperation among I2U2 members represents key areas in the 21st-century global economy, the group needs to avoid entering into geopolitical issues that could derail its principal objective.
• I2U2 can expand by advancing cooperation in new areas in the future or by pursuing cooperation with other partners in both the Middle East and South Asia.
• The leaders also reaffirmed their support for the Abraham Accords and other peace and normalisation arrangements with Israel, and this can be a way of addressing the crucial  Palestinian question in the long term.
• The criticism of the agreement on food park by the farmers’ union in India that it will bring big corporates into the Indian agriculture sector, which will reduce farmers into a peasant, needs to be taken in the right spirit by the Indian government and the farmers’ need to be taken into confidence.
• India ought to take the opportunities provided by the I2U2 to mobilise technology and capital into crucial developmental areas without creating a perception that it is moving away from the principled stand of a two-state solution.

THE CONCLUSION: I2U2 has enormous potential, and its composition affords numerous chances for win-win cooperation. The United States has tremendous capabilities in every possible area; India has massive human resources and talents; Israel has advanced technology in a number of vital disciplines; and the UAE is developing creative policies, luring start-ups, and is willing to commit large money. However, the weight of its sustainability will fall mostly on the UAE and Israel — the key beneficiaries — to keep the interest of the U.S. and India and justify its continuation.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. What is I2U2? Critically analyse its objectives.
2. How far do you agree with the view that the entry into the geopolitical arena by the I2U2 can pose risks to its principal objective?
3. The I2U2 sets the stage for a new and dynamic phase in India’s relations with the Middle East. Comment.

THE CONTEXT: In June 2022 the Government of India came up with the Agnipath Scheme for the armed forces of the country with a view to make these leaner forces without compromising their combat abilities. Voices from various segments of the society have also iterated their concurrence with the idea and even demanded a similar kind of scheme with regard to the civil services especially the All India Services (AIS).This article analyses this debate from the UPSC perspective.

THE ISSUE: Rapid changes are taking place around the world in terms of economy, urbanisation, climate change, pandemic, technological advancements (shock), and increased emphasis on local awareness and identity etc. The response time to adapt to such changes is much shorter now than it used to be. As instruments of public service, civil servants have to be ready to manage such changes. On the one hand, the perception is that they are wedded to the status-quoist approach and resist change while on the other hand, we see various examples where the civil servants have taken initiatives to bring the desired change in the positive direction. But such one-off incidents is not sufficient and we need to comprehensively remould our services to make them performance oriented without losing the welfarist side of the services.

WHAT AILS THE CIVIL SERVICES?

INDIAN BUREAUCRACY IS ALLEGED TO BE STATUS QUOIST

• As instruments of public service, civil servants have to be ready for change. The common experience, however, is that they resist changes as they are wedded to their privileges and prospects and thereby, have become ends in themselves

o   For example, the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution have brought about major changes. Rural and urban local governments have been enabled to become institutions of self-government.

However, the intended vision has not been achieved, due to the reluctance on the part of the civil servants to accept the changes in control and accountability as well as the altered roles and responsibilities.

RULE-BOOK BUREAUCRACY

• By the rule book bureaucracy, it meant mainly following the rules and laws of the book without taking care of the actual needs of the people.
• Due to rule book bureaucracy, some civil servants have developed the attitude of’ bureaucratic behaviour’, which evokes issues like red-tapism, the complication of procedures, and the mal-adapted responses of ‘bureaucratic’ organisations to the needs of the people.

POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

• Civil servants at the regional level work in coordination with the political representative. They both are required to serve the common people by bringing development, welfare, well-being and peace to society.
• The political representative for the sake of fulfilling the populist demand influences the functioning of administrative officials. Hence, an administrative official has to adhere to the will of the political master.
• This interference sometimes leads to issues like corruption, and arbitrary transfers of honest civil servants. Also, this led to substantial inefficiency where the vital positions are not held by the best officers and ultimately this can lead to institutional decline.

STRUCTURAL ISSUES

Civil services have been facing many structural issues

• Generalist officers: Civil Service is conceived primarily to deliver the core functions of the state such as maintenance of law and order and implementation of government orders.
• However, with changing needs with the advent of globalisation, and economic reforms, the role of the state has changed. Therefore, there are new challenges due to technological evolution (for example cyber security). Thus, there is a higher demand (of specialist officers) for domain knowledge at the policy level.
• Ensuring transparency and accountability along with participatory and representative decision-making are some issues that need to be addressed.
• There are instances of lack of employment opportunities in some public services, while there are many vacancies in others.

COMPETING NOT COLLABORATING

• Contrary to public perception, most AIS officers do not collaborate as professionals. They are often competing with each other, questioning almost everything that the other AIS officer brings to them. This is indeed strange, but that is how it is. This has led to enormous delays, and decision-making has suffered. Moreover, an AIS officer rarely sticks his neck out to defend a junior colleague.
• Quite a few are protecting their backsides and looking at a post-retirement job in the government. The AIS could have evolved as a group with a distinctive ethos wherein the constituents understood and helped each other. But it has not happened.

HYBRID ROLE IDENTITY

• In recent years the notion of identity has given rise to a rich debate in nearly every share of life. The focus has been, for instance, on the desire of individuals to conform to shared norms in society, the cognitive aspects of norms or the sense of belonging.
• In such a case, a bureaucrat is a part of (sometimes large) organizations and he gets accustomed and exposed to certain perceptions and preferences of the organization. Hence, he acts not only as a rational actor on his own account but also as an en-cultured actor, whose perception of a supposed “good policy” is deeply influenced by the social context that he is part.

STEPS TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE

RECRUITMENT

• Rationalization and harmonization of services: The existing 60 plus separate civil services at the central and state level needs to be reduced through rationalization and harmonization of services. [Recruits should be placed in a central talent pool, which would then allocate candidates by matching their competencies and the job description of the post. Concomitantly, the number of exams for civil services should ideally be brought down to one with all India ranking. States may also be encouraged to use this pool for recruitments.]
• Encourage lateral entry: Inducting specialists at higher levels of government will provide much-needed expertise.
• Outsource service delivery: Efforts need to be made to outsource service delivery to reduce dependence on the administrative machinery. Research is needed to identify possible services to be outsourced; various PPP models should be explored to determine the best possible mode of outsourcing.

TRAINING

• Training is the critical component of human resource development. The current systems of training for civil services do not adequately reflect changes in the socio-economic scenario and the emerging new challenges.  The reform agenda should comprise mandatory training for all civil servants at the induction stage combined with mid-career training imparting them with the required domain knowledge.
• There is also a need to inculcate ethical underpinning in the civil servants by implementing the Code of Ethics.
• Mid-career exams/skill assessments might be undertaken to evaluate and decide on future postings.
• Monitoring and overseeing mechanisms shall also be revitalised reaping the knowledge and experience of various institutes, the corporate sector, civil society etc.

EVALUATION

• Institute goal setting and tracking: There is an inherent need to set key responsibility/focus areas and progressively reduce discretionary aspects to evaluate civil servants.
• Institute the online Smart Performance Appraisal Report Recording Online Window (SPARROW) template in all central and state cadres. [The online portal was introduced for the Indian Administrative Service Officers in 2011. Through this portal, the IAS officers could record their performance appraisals on time and without delay. Now it has been extended to Group B and C officers also. Most recently in June 2022, the newly merged Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) also announced to adopt a comprehensive online system for its employees to file annual performance appraisal reports.]
• Compulsory retirement for underperforming officers: Develop benchmarks to assess the performance of officers and compulsorily retire those deemed unable to meet the benchmarks.
• Incentivization: Review existing schemes and introduce new schemes of incentives for extraordinary performance.

E-INITIATIVES

• Robust Vigilant Mechanism: Strengthen institutional mechanisms for prevention and detection of corruption. Thus, there is a need to review existing vigilance mechanisms.
• There is a need to strengthen the implementation of a Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System (CPGRAMs).
• Implementation of e-Office: Implementation of e-Office may be expedited in all ministries/ departments; all states/UTs may also be encouraged to adopt it.
• Prompt delivery of services: Every department should seek to simplify their processes to cut administrative delays and ensure participatory feedback mechanisms for efficient service delivery.

REFORMS IN THE RECENT PAST TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SERVICES

REFORM

BENEFITS

LATERAL ENTRY

• Lateral recruitment is aimed at achieving the objective of bringing in fresh talent into the system, which will create new energy to the system.
• The Second Administrative Reforms Commission too had recommended lateral entry at senior positions.
• Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers have little expertise in subjects like civil aviation, defence, coal, shipping, etc., as the states where the IAS officers spend most of their early career do not deal with these subjects. Lateral entry will make the Indian administration also match the global standards.
• The US has a system of lateral entry, where about 4000 new officers are appointed as “political appointees” with the inauguration of a new president, allowing incoming presidents to work on their agenda more effectively. India had rejected the USA model – adopting the British model of lifetime ‘neutral’ civil service where civil servants remain politically neutral and formulate technically sound policies according to the will of the political executive within the framework of the constitution.
• Lateral entry opens a small window to get the best from the American and British systems and puts pressure on the system to reform and perform.

NATIONAL PROGRAMME FOR CIVIL SERVICE CAPACITY BUILDING  – MISSION KARMAYOGI

• It is aimed at better service delivery to the public “governance, performance, and accountability”. lt promises a shift from rules to roles, silos to coordination, interdisciplinary movements, and a continuous capacity-building exercise.
• The focus of the reform is the creation of a ‘citizen-centric civil service’ capable of creating and delivering services conducive to economic growth and public welfare.
• It aims for learning resources from the best institutions and practices from across the world while retaining Indian sensibilities and culture.
• The mid-career training will now be available to all government staff instead of the top officers alone, and their profile and assessment will be continuous.
• If there is a need for some special appointment, then authorities can do so by looking at the profile of the officers with the help of technology instead of depending on perceptions.
• Accordingly, Mission Karmayogi shifts the focus from “Rule-based training to Role-based training”. Greater thrust has been laid on behavioural change.

THE PRESENT DEBATE OF THE AGNIVEER TYPE OF SCHEME FOR ALL INDIA SERVICES

WHY AGNIPATH LIKE SCHEME FOR AIS

• There is a huge sense of dissatisfaction over the performance of the civil services, particularly AIS. For example, the people are generally dissatisfied with the performance of the police and there are credible complaints about its brutality, third-degree methods and extra-judicial killings.
• It has been noticed that once an officer is selected for the AIS, he/she develops a smug attitude that his/her career for the next 30/35 years is now secure. Therefore, there is a lack of pressure to perform, an incentive to innovate, and a desire to excel.
• Senior officers of the IAS and IPS have gone to the Supreme Court for reforms in the civil services and the police.
• The judiciary has, from time to time, given directions for reforms but these have not been implemented in letter and spirit.
• In the last few decades, the AIS have grown in size and have become very, very top-heavy. There are a number of officers who are holding top positions but have very little work to do. Therefore, they are frustrated and look for politicians to get a top posts in the bureaucratic mainstream.

WHAT SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND

• The law-and-order problems have become far more complex and people are not happy with the police. But, still, abolition of police or rather an infusion of trained civilians in the police force is not an option as it might result in lawlessness and chaos. Thus, it is imperative to not only just increase the efficiency of trained police personnel but also increase their strength.
• The AIS have rendered excellent services to the country despite the severe constraints under which the officers function.
• To cope with the increasing responsibilities, there has been a steady expansion of civil services. More training and reorientation in the service approach is more needed than to have Agniveer kind of entrants.
• Government activities today cover a much wider spectrum. Now the welfare schemes are being undertaken on a massive scale. To cope with the increasing responsibilities, there has been a steady expansion of the civil services and reducing the strength in not going to be much useful, we need both the strength and quality of service personnel.

PROPOSED STRUCTURE OF AGNIPATH IN AIS

• Strict review of the performance of AIS officers: The objective of the reviews should be to weed out 25 per cent of officers at the first stage (after 15 years of service), 10 per cent of officers at the second stage (after 25 years of service) and 5 per cent of officers at the third stage (after 30 years of service)
• Reason for Weeding out: Weeding out should be for
• poor performance,
• charges of corruption,
• any other misconduct of a serious nature, or
• For being physically unfit.
• Impartial Screening: Screening at each stage will have to be very rigorous and the mechanism to do so must be impartial. It will have to be doubly ensured that the officers are not victimised for political reasons.
• The officers may be given copper/silver/golden handshakes at the three stages.

Benefits of this scheme for AIS

• The periodic trimming of services would ensure that officers become performance-oriented, and acquire new skills and a flair for innovation in administration. The complacency and smugness would disappear in a majority of cases.
• The bureaucratic top would become lighter leading to efficiency and better coordination.

OTHER SUGGESTED REFORMS

1.  The paper, titled “The Indian Administrative Service Meets Big Data” in 2016 recommended: (South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

• Data: The DoPT should use data on civil servants’ abilities, education, and training when placing officers early in their careers. As officers gain experience, performance metrics can inform key decisions about promotion and allocation.
• Lateral Exit: officers deemed unfit for further service at certain career benchmarks are compulsorily retired through a transparent and uniform system of performance review.

2. Sarkaria Commission recommended:

• Generalists should yield place to greater specialization in areas of public administration.
• The minimum period of deputation under union government should be laid down
• Set up Advisory council for Personnel Administration: for regular consultation between Union and state on AIS management.

3. 2nd ARC recommendations:

• A system of two intensive reviews one at 14 years of service and the other at 20 years. And for a new appointment, the period of employment shall be for 20 years
• It has identified 12 domains for specialization: general administration, urban development, etc.
• Establish National institutes of Public Administration and graduates from it and other selected universities will be eligible to appear for the Civil service examination.
• It can create a large pool of aspiring civil servants as well as enable serving bureaucrats to attain a deep knowledge of the country’s political economy, increased domain expertise, and improved managerial skills
• The age of entry for general candidates is 21-25 years and a maximum of three attempts.

4. Hota committee has recommended:

• Fixed tenure of at least 3 years for an officer of higher civil service along with annual performance targets.
• A civil service board for all decisions regarding transfer posting and promotions

5.  Supreme court in 2013(TSR Subramanian case): All actions must be taken on basis of written communication as oral directives undermine the credibility of the order

6.  A Parliamentary panel has recommended the deputation of IAS and IPS officers in the private sector to bring in domain expertise and competition.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUE

Present day training/learning landscape for AIS is diverse and fragmented with inconsistencies in training priorities by various training institutions with a multiplicity of training curricula, leading civil servants to think departmentally and in silos. Due to this, there is a lack of a shared understanding of India’s national developmental aspirations and needs. While courses are offered in patches for civil servants, there’s an absolute lack of a life-long learning environment. There is a need to view training and learning as a continuous process. As the Indian economy grows it will get more complex to govern. Also, there is increasing use of complex technologies in governance and public service delivery. Therefore, governance capacities and technical competencies of government employees will have to be enhanced proportionately. Starting with lateral entry to Mission Karmyogi to now much talked about Agniveer kind of scheme for AIS is a welcome step in the right direction but the tagged complexities and concerns with each of the initiatives must be addressed to keep the relevance of the schemes intact.

THE CONCLUSION: Capacity augmentation of Civil Servants plays a vital role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programs, and performing core governance functions. A transformational change in Civil Service Capacity is proposed to be affected by organically linking the transformation of work culture, strengthening public institutions, and adopting modern technology to build civil service capacity with the overall aim of ensuring efficient delivery of services to citizens. The future of the country cannot be progressive without a reformed bureaucracy. Civil servants are uniquely positioned to play a role in lifting more than 170 million out of poverty into prosperity and the new suggested Agniveer kind of scheme might help in bringing the much-needed behavioural change in the serving officers and foster a sense of responsible service in the aspiring ones.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. An Agnipath scheme for the AIS will help to remove complacency and inefficiency in bureaucracy. Comment
2. It has been noticed that once an officer is selected for the AIS, he develops a smug attitude. How can the proposed Agniveer kind of reforms for AIS can help in bringing behavioural changes in the serving officers?

The context: Just as the role of the Parliament pertains to making laws on a national level, the State Legislative Assemblies have been created for the same purpose at the state level under the Constitution. Over the years, the question of the efficacy of these state legislatures has to some extent been positioned under doubts based on their performance. In this article, we analyse the working of state legislative assemblies from the UPSC perspective.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES OF THE STATES IN INDIA: A BRIEF BACKGROUND

• It was for the first time in the year 1773 via the Regulating Act of 1773 that provisions were made for the appointment of a Governor General and it was further assisted by a Governor General’s council.
• Under the 1861 Act, new legislative councils are formed in the provinces of Bengal, NWFP and Punjab.
• The Government of India Act of 1919 (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) was based on the Montagu-Chelmsford Report that had been submitted to Parliament in 1918. Under the act, elections were held in 1920, the number of Indian members to the viceroy’s Executive Council was increased from at least two to no fewer than three, and the Imperial Legislative Council was transformed into a bicameral legislature consisting of a Legislative Assembly (lower house) and a Council of State (upper house).
• Later, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1935, preparations were held for provincial autonomy. In early 1937, the general election to the provincial legislatures was fixed throughout the country.
• The Government of India Act 1935 ended dyarchy in the provinces and increased autonomy. Six provinces were given bicameral legislatures. Elections based on separate electorates were held in 1937 and 1946, leading to the formation of provincial ministries (governments) led by a Prime Minister.
• Further, the Constitution of India has embedded in its provisions, a detailed description about bicameralism in India. Part VI, Chapter III, Article 168-212 talks about the formation/creation of state legislatures, their composition, manner of election, abolition and dissolution, members- their powers and duties, etc.
• Some key provisions regarding State Legislative Assemblies:

Article 168

• Article 168 is the provision which speaks about the constitution of state legislatures.

ARTICLE 169

• Article 169 speaks about the abolition or creation of legislative councils. States which have a bicameral legislature can abolish their legislative council and states that wish to have a bicameral legislature, can opt for the creation of a legislative council.
• In either case, a special majority resolution has to be passed by the legislative assembly of that state. The special majority is obtained when the majority of all the members and two-thirds majority of the members present and voting, give their assent in favour of the motion.

ARTICLE 170

• Article 170 and Article 171 speak about the composition of the legislative assembly and the legislative council, respectively.
• Subject to the provisions of Article 333, the Legislative Assembly of each State shall consist of not more than five hundred, and not less than sixty, members chosen by direct election from territorial constituencies in the State
• The total number of members in the Legislative Council of a State having such a Council shall not exceed one-third of the total number of members in the Legislative Assembly of that State: Provided that the total number of members in the Legislative Council of a State shall in no case be less than forty.

ARTICLE 172, 173

• Article 172 specifies the duration of the state legislatures and Article 173 speaks about the qualifications required for becoming a member in state legislatures.

ARTICLE 174

• Article 174 gives power to the Governor to summon sessions of the houses, prorogue either house and dissolve the legislative assembly. The legislative council, however, is a permanent body and cannot be dissolved.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES OF THE STATES IN INDIA: WORKING AND MANDATE

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Every state and union territory (except those directly governed by the Union Government) of India has a legislative assembly. It is the house of state legislature where legislative power truly resides. Any bill or proposition is always presented in the legislative assembly.
• Though it is then passed to the legislative council, the legislative assembly is not bound by the recommendations of the legislative council.

NATURE

• The powers of legislative councils are advisory in nature and ultimately, the decisions are made by the legislative assembly. This is why it is said to be the house where power truly resides. This is to an extent similar to the status of Lok Sabha in Parliament.

SCOPE OF BICAMERALISM

• States having a unicameral legislature, and that want to adopt a bicameral legislature by creating a legislative council, will have to present the motion for the same in the legislative assembly.
• States which have a legislative council but wish to abolish it, too, have to present their motion in the legislative assembly. It is only when a special majority is obtained in the legislative assembly that the creation/ abolition takes effect.

COMPOSITION

• The minimum number of members that must constitute a legislative assembly is 60 members and an upper limit of 500 members has been set. However, for certain states like Goa, Sikkim, etc., the lower limit has been relaxed.

 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES OF THE STATES IN INDIA: ANALYSING THE PERFORMANCE

FREQUENCY OF ATTENDANCE

• In 2021, state assemblies met for an average of 21 days and during this time, passed more than 500 Bills. The average is boosted by three states: Kerala (61), Odisha (43), and Karnataka (40) which met for 40 days or more.  17 states met for less than 20 days and of these, five met for less than 10 days.
• Between 2016 and 2021, 23 state assemblies met for an average of 25 days.  States which met for fewer days include Tripura (11), Punjab (14), Haryana (14), Uttarakhand (14), and Delhi (16).  A low number of sitting days impacts legislative scrutiny of Bills, budgets, and other issues.

LIMITED SCRUTINY OF BILLS  

• The Legislative Bills covered a variety of subjects such as regulating higher education, online gaming, religious conversions, and the preservation of cattle.
• Most of these Bills saw little legislative scrutiny.  About half of the Bills were passed within a day of their introduction.
• In 2021, 44% of Bills were passed within a day of their introduction in the legislature.  In eight states including Gujarat, West Bengal, Punjab, and Bihar, all Bills were passed on the same day as they were introduced.

ABSENCE OF DETAILED SCRUTINY OF LAWS

• In Parliament, Bills are often referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees for detailed examination. In most states, such committees are non-existent.
• In the absence of a robust committee system and fewer working days, state legislatures barely spend any time scrutinising legislative proposals brought before them.
• An Assembly may create ad hoc Select Committees for the specific purpose of examining a Bill.  However, at the state level, Committees are often the exception rather than the norm, and Bills are rarely examined by Committees.

DISCREPANCIES IN ATTENDANCE: ONLY BUDGET SESSION WITNESSES’ THE MAJORITY OF WORKING DAYS

• Article 174 of the Constitution states that the gap between one sitting of the Assembly and the next should not be more than six months. In most states, legislatures meet for two or three sessions in a year.
• This consists of a long budget session, which concludes by the end of March and then brief monsoon and winter sessions.
• In 2021, on average, 61% of the sittings were held during the budget session.  Some states like Rajasthan, Tripura, and Punjab held more than 70% of their total sittings during the budget session.  In Manipur, Mizoram, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, more than 80% of the total sittings were held during the budget session.

ROLE OF GOVERNOR: ANALYZING ASSENTS AND ORDINANCES

• In 2021, 75% of the Bills received the assent of the Governor within a month.  States, where the average time for Bills to receive assent was the shortest, include Meghalaya (four days) and Uttar Pradesh (six days).   States with comparatively longer time for assent are Jharkhand (80 days on average) and Tripura (63 days).
• Although swift assent is good for smooth law-making, recurring instances of such fast assents put the credibility of both the law and office of the Governor
• in some doubt.
• The Supreme Court has held that the Ordinance route for law-making should be used only under exceptional circumstances and should not substitute the law-making powers of the Legislature.
• In 2021, 21 out of 28 states promulgated Ordinances.  The Kerala government promulgated the highest number of Ordinances (144) followed by Andhra Pradesh (20) and Maharashtra (15).

ISSUE OF TRANSPARENCY

• Information and data on state legislatures is not easily available. While some state legislatures publish data on a regular basis, many do not have a systematic way of reporting legislative proceedings and business.
• Some states do not regularly update their websites or the National e Vidhan Application (a central initiative to collate information on all legislatures).  Data on the indicators chosen here was not available for all states/UTs.
• While some states such as Karnataka, Delhi and Rajasthan place the texts of legislative debates on their assembly websites, many such as Gujarat and West Bengal don’t.
• RTI replies from Gujrat State assembly officials said that there are no plans in the near future of uploading debates of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly proceedings on the website.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF POOR PERFORMANCE OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE

OVERLOOKING LOCAL ASPIRATIONS

• State legislatures make laws on subjects in the State List and the Concurrent List of the Constitution. These include subjects such as law and order, police, health, education, and land.
• Thus, more than the Parliament, the state legislatures hold a key position in making laws for people within the state premise. Hence, an ineffective or less productive state legislature means overlooking key local issues and aspirations.

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

• Due to a loss in the number of active working days, there is limited scrutiny of state-level expenditure, fiscal devolution and decentralization of decision-making within states, or tracking functioning of state legislatures. This results in limited accountability while paving the way for further arbitrariness in law-making.
• By enforcing the collective responsibility of the Council of Ministers and the individual responsibility of the ministers, the assemblies ensure an accountable government and responsive administration. Through instruments like question hour, debates, motions, budgetary control, committee system etc., the assemblies act as the watchdog of citizens’ trust. Thus, the proper functioning of these deliberative institutions is vital for upholding the public interest and the rule of law.

THREAT TO FEDERALISM

• The state legislatures play a key role in Constitutional Amendments concerning one or more states (in the form of special majority requirements). Attenuating working days thus, signify that such bills won’t be scrutinized properly. This would ultimately hamper the federal spirit of the Constitution.

LOSS OF PUBLIC TRUST

• Unlike the Centre, where draft bills are often shared by ministries for public comments, the process of conceiving, deliberating and passing state laws is rather ambiguous. Furthermore, arbitrary promulgation of ordinances and lack of transparent house sessions further enhance this ambiguity in state legislatures.
• This may in the long term erode public trust in the legislative institutions. All states must practice inclusive policy-making.

VIOLATION OF CITIZENS’ RIGHT TO INFORMATION

• The information about the debates and other proceedings of the assemblies should ideally be found in the public domain, as mandated by Section 4 (1) (b) of RTI Act, 2005 on proactive public disclosure of government documents.
• Without timely access to this information, the citizens and the civil society cannot hold their representatives accountable which leads to arbitrariness and corruption in governance.

THE WAY FORWARD

FIXING TIME PERIOD

• The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) had recommended setting a minimum period of sitting days for state legislatures.
• It had suggested that state legislatures with less than 70 members should meet for at least 50 days a year, while the rest should meet for at least 90 days.
• Article 174 needs to be amended to fix the minimum number of days assemblies must sit (in days) in a year. Also, the total control of the executive in calling the session and deciding the days of sittings needs revision.

FORMING COMMITTEES FOR SCRUTINY OF BILLS

• Committees help legislatures discuss Bills in detail and scrutinize their provisions closely.
• Committees also provide an opportunity to engage with sectoral experts and stakeholders which allows for wider participation in the law-making process.
• State Assemblies must create ad hoc Select Committees for the specific purpose of examining a Bill.

USING TECHNOLOGY

• The National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) is a system for digitising the legislative bodies of all Indian states and the Parliament through a single platform on which house proceedings, starred/unstarred questions and answers, committee reports etc. will be available.
• Nagaland became the first state to implement NeVA.
• Thus, Nagaland becomes an example to be followed by other states so as to ensure the highest levels of transparency in legislative assemblies and councils.

LIVE TELECAST ALL PROCEEDINGS

• Lack of accountability to citizens emanates from the high degree of opacity of proceedings of state assemblies.
• Live telecasts of proceedings will ensure their performance is monitored by citizens in real-time, thereby improving the quality of legislation and debates on matters of public importance.

RTI DISCLOSURES

• Citizens should collectively demand mandatory disclosure of the text of legislative debates and questions on assembly websites by all states under the RTI Act, 2005.

BILINGUAL WEBSITES AND DOCUMENTS

• All government resolutions at the state level, including assembly websites, should be translated into English and be available along with the vernacular language of the state, to ensure more readability and hence more civic and media engagement with state policies and actions.

CASE STUDY: ENHANCING LAW MAKING – JOINT COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE MAHARASHTRA SHAKTI BILL

• The Shakti Criminal Laws (Maharashtra Amendment) Bill, 2020 was introduced in the Maharashtra Legislative assembly on December 14, 2020. It was referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses on the same day. The Committee presented its report on December 22, 2021.
• The Bill amends the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 in their application to Maharashtra. Key features of the Bill and related recommendations of the Committee include:

1)  Enhanced punishment: The Bill mandated the death penalty for certain offences against women and children, such as rape. It also enhanced the punishment for certain offences such as throwing acid and providing false information against a person to humiliate, extort, threaten, defame, or harass them. Making false complaints was punishable with imprisonment for a maximum of one year.

§  Improvements: The Committee recommended increasing the term of imprisonment to a minimum of one and a maximum of three years. The Bill passed by the Assembly included this change.

2) Timelines: The Bill proposed a short timeline for the completion of the investigation, trial, and disposal of appeal for certain offences. The investigation was to be completed within 15 days (extendable by seven days).

§  Improvements: The Committee observed that this short period may affect the merits of the investigation. It recommended increasing this period to 30 days, extendable by a further 30 days. This recommendation was incorporated in the Bill when it was passed.

THE CONCLUSION: Legislatures are arenas for debate and giving voice to public opinion. As accountability institutions, they are responsible for asking tough questions of the government and highlighting uncomfortable truths. So, lesser sittings of the legislature lead to bypassing of crucial debates and scrutiny. Lesser number of sitting days also means that state governments are free to make laws through ordinances. And when they convene legislatures, there is little time for MLAs to scrutinize laws brought before them. Such work culture cannot become the basis of smooth functioning democracy. There needs to be greater accountability and responsibility amongst legislators for the importance of the public office they are holding.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

• Critically analyse the working of the state legislatures in India. According to you, what steps need to be taken to enhance the productivity of the state legislatures?
• Reforming the functioning of legislative assemblies at the state level is a must for realizing the goal of an accountable administration. Substantiate with relevant examples.
• “Engaging sectoral experts and stakeholders allow for wider participation in the law-making process.” In the light of the statement, discuss the need for establishing select committees at the level of state legislatures.

THE CONTEXT: An appeal against the video survey of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque has resurfaced the debate surrounding the Places of Worship Act, 1991. The issue has yet again resurrected the debate related to the credibility of religious institutions and infrastructures and their position in secular India.In this article, we analyse how the Places of Worship Act secures the secular nature of our democracy from the UPSC perspective.

THE PLACES OF WORSHIP (SPECIAL PROVISIONS) ACT, 1991

The act to prohibit conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on the 15th day of August 1947, and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

• It extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The provisions of sections 3, 6 and 8 shall come into force at once and the remaining provisions of this Act shall be deemed to have come into force on the 11th day of July 1991.
• “Place of worship” means a temple, mosque, gurudwara, church, monastery or any other place of public religious worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof, by whatever name called.

Key Provisions:

• Section 3: No person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof into a place of worship of a different section of the same religious denomination or of a different religious denomination or any section thereof.
• Section 4:

o   Section 4(1): declares that the religious character of a place of worship “shall continue to be the same as it existed” on August 15, 1947.

o   Section 4(2):It declares that all litigation, appeals, or other proceedings ongoing before any court or authority on August 15, 1947, involving converting the status of a place of worship, will cease as soon as the law takes effect. There will be no more legal action taken.

Key Exceptions:

• Section 5:The Act also does not apply to the place of worship commonly referred to as Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. This law will have an overriding effect over any other law in force.
• Ancient and historical monuments and archaeological sites and remains that are covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 are beyond its purview.

RESURGENCE OF THE PLACES OF WORSHIP ACT, 1991

CONTEXT

GENESIS OF GYANVAPI MOSQUE

DEVELOPMENTS/EXPLANATIONS

• Gyanvapi mosque is located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. It is a stone’s throw away from the Kashi Vishwanath temple, built in 1780 by Ahilyabai Holkar, the Queen of Indore.
• Kashi Vishwanath is a prominent temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva. Recent petitions claim that the Gyanvapi mosque lies on the remains of the ‘original’ Kashi Vishwanath temple.
• Under the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar, priest Narayan Bhatta rebuilt the Vishweshwara temple in the 16th century. It is believed that in the late 17th century, around 1669, the temple was once again razed on the orders of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.

EMERGENCE OF THE GYANVAPI CONUNDRUM

THE CASE OF FLOUTING ORDERS OF A SUPERIOR COURT

• In December 2019, barely a month after the Ayodhya verdict, a fresh petition was filed at a Varanasi Civil Court seeking an archaeological assessment of the Gyanvapi mosque’s origins.
• In 2020, the 1991 petitioners approached the Civil Court in Varanasi to hear the original petition again.The proceedings were stayed by the Allahabad High Court in February 2020, it reserved Judgement on the matter in March 2020.
• Then, despite the stay, the matter was reopened by a Varanasi Civil Court in April 2021, Fast Track Court Civil Judge (Senior Division) Ashutosh Tiwari ordered an Archaeological Survey of India investigation into the mosque’s origins.
• Allahabad High Court came down heavily on the Civil Court for proceeding despite the High Court reserving Judgment on the matter.

CLAIMS AND CONCERNS OF THE HINDU SECT

• Within Holkar’s, Kashi Vishwanath temple is a statue of Nandi, the sacred bull companion of the Hindu deity Shiva. Typically, in Hindu temples, the Nandi statue faces the shiv lingam, a cylindrical monolith representing Shiva.
• In this case, it faces the Gyanvapi mosque bolstering Hindu claims that a Vishweshwara temple once stood in its place and that a shiv lingam is hidden within the mosque’s premises.
• This led to petitions filed by Hindus from 1991 to 2022 requesting permission to pray within its premises. Informal video surveys further identify the Hindu features and motifs that are part of its masonry and structure.

CLAIMS AND CONCERNS OF THE MUSLIM SECT

• Proponents of the Islamic sect suggest that what matters in law is the status of the Gyanvapi mosque on August 15, 1947.
• Its status as a mosque and a waqf were noted by a judgment of the Allahabad high court (AIR 1942 Allahabad 353, Din Mohammed and Others. vs Secretary of State).
• Also, any change in the status of the mosque will amount to flouting of law under the Places of Worship Act, 1991.
• By conducting such investigations into religious sites, the courts have, like they did in the case of Babri Masjid, legitimized the values of an anti-modern polity. They have acted against the values that they are supposed to uphold. Courts cannot be acting on claims of mythology or those of medieval capture.

THE PLACES OF WORSHIP ACT, 1991: COMPARISON OF ARGUMENTS

PROPONENTS OF THE HINDU SHIVA TEMPLE

• Petitioners argue that the law is impotent for delivering justice against the barbarism inflicted on religious institutions, culture and architecture before independence.
• Proponents of this group argue that the demolition of a temple’s structure and subsequent offerings of namaaz did not change the character of land where once a temple stood.
• It is a historical fact that in 1192 the invader Mohammad Ghori after defeating Prithviraj Chauhan established Islamic rule in India and foreign rule continued up to August 15, 1947, thereafter.
• Therefore, any cutoff date in the Places of Worship Act, 1991, could be the date on which India was conquered by Gori and the religious places of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs, as were existing in 1192, have to be restored with the same glory.

PROPONENTS OF GYANVAPI MOSQUE

• The Muslim bodies, such as the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, have countered that a dent in the Places of Worship Act, of 1991 would be the first blow to the secular fabric.
• The Muslim body stressed that the Ayodhya verdict, which upheld the Places of Worship Act, had noted that “historical wrongs cannot be remedied by people taking the law into their own hands”.
• Thus, the status of the Mosque should be preserved as it is presented so as to avoid public upsurges in the name of religion.
• The philosophical and practical understanding of the Places of Worship Act 1991, suggests that the nature of our architectural sites in present times cannot be entertaining mythology or medieval warfare.
• By ordering a survey of the Gyanvapi Mosque, the courts have done exactly the opposite of this inherent idea of the Places of Worship Act 1991.

VIEWS OF THE SUPREME COURT ON ‘PLACES OF WORSHIP ACT, 1991

• In the Ayodhya judgment, the Supreme court categorically held that the law cannot be used as a device to reach back in time and provide a legal remedy to every person who disagrees with the course that history has taken.
• The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution.
• The law (Places of Worship Act, 1991) is a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution.
• Under the 1991 Act, the Supreme court views that one cannot change a mosque or a church into a Hindu temple, or vice-versa; however, there’s nothing to stop one from trying to find out whether a building is a mosque or a church or a temple.
• Justice Chandrachud is of the opinion that the ascertainment of the religious character of a place as a procedural instrument may not necessarily fall foul of the provisions of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act of 1991.
• The State has by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalized its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism, which is a part of the basic features of the Constitution.

THE GROUNDS FOR THE CHALLENGING PLACES OF WORSHIP ACT, 1991

Along with other petitions in line, BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP from UP, Harnath Singh Yadav, has submitted a private member’s bill with the Rajya Sabha secretariat seeking to repeal The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.

It is argued by the ruling party that the 1991 Act not only violates fundamental rights such as the right to equality and the right to life but also infringes on citizen’s constitutionally guaranteed right to religious freedom in the following manner:

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT BEING CHALLENGED

• Section 3 of the Act criminalises ‘conversion’ of a place of worship for one religion or sect into another.
• Section 4 bars filing any suit or initiating any other legal proceeding for the conversion of the religious character of any place of worship, as existing on August 15, 1947.
• Various petitions contend that the choice of date adversely impacts Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. From 1192 onwards, Muslims and the British ruled India and destroyed temples.
• Section 5 of the Act excludes its application to the site known as ‘Ram Janam Bhumi’ or ‘Babri Masjid’.
• It also bars Courts from determining whether any place of worship has been converted after August 15th 1947.

ISSUES WITH RIGHTS & EXCLUSIONS

• Freezing the date in 1947, does not allow these communities to restore their places of worship. This violates Articles 14 and 15 which guarantee equality, and the right to religious freedoms under Articles 25, 26 and 29.
• It offends the right of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to pray, profess, practice and prorogate religion (Article 25).
• The Act infringes on the rights of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to manage, maintain and administer the places of worship and pilgrimage (Article 26)
• The Act further deprives Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to take back their places of worship and pilgrimage connected with their cultural heritage (Article 29)
• Sections 3 and 4 of the Act have virtually taken away the right to approach the Court and thus the Right to Judicial Remedy (Article 32) has been closed.
• Some petitioners have argued that ‘Hindus’ are fighting for the restoration of the birthplace of Lord Krishna for hundreds of years with peaceful public agitation, but by enacting the Act, the Centre has excluded the birthplace of Lord Ram at Ayodhya but not the birthplace of Lord Krishna in Mathura, though both are the incarnations of Lord Vishnu- the creator.
• Thus, the exclusion of the birthplace of Lord Krishna in Mathura becomes a challenge in the act.
• Thus, the Act bars judicial review which is a basic structure of the Constitution and cannot be taken away. It also violates the principle of secularism which is a basic feature (Article 13).

WHY PLACES OF WORSHIP ACT, OF 1991 IS FOUNDATION OF SECULAR DEMOCRACY?

The inherent purpose of the Places of Worship Act, of 1991, was the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship at India’s independence. For a complex democracy like ours, it becomes an imperative to ensure the healing of injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered.It is necessary to adopt such a law in view of the controversies arising from time to time with regard to the conversion of places of worship which tend to vitiate the communal atmosphere.

Keeping the above-mentioned aspects in mind, the Parliament must retain the Places of Worship Act without amending or repealing it.

THE WAY FORWARD

• In the Ayodhya judgment, the court had categorically held that the law cannot be used as a device to reach back in time and provide a legal remedy to every person who disagrees with the course that history has taken. The courts of today cannot take cognisance of historical rights and wrongs.
• The Supreme Court has reiterated the principle of non-retrogression in a number of cases. The non-retrogression principle holds that government may extend protection beyond what the Constitution requires, but it cannot retreat from that extension once made.
• The doctrine of non-retrogression sets forth that the State should not take measures or steps that deliberately lead to retrogression (or deterioration) on the enjoyment of rights either under the Constitution or otherwise. For example,

o   In Navtej Singh Johar’s judgment in 2018, the court held that there is no place for retreat in a progressive society. Therefore, the state should not take steps that deliberately lead to retrogression(deterioration) on the enjoyment of rights either under the Constitution or otherwise”.

o   In Babri Masjid’s verdict in 2019, it was mentioned that non-retrogression “is a foundational feature of the fundamental constitutional principles of which secularism is a core component”.

o   The Places of Worship Act is thus ‘a legislative intervention which preserves non-retrogression as an essential feature of our secular values.

• The historical wrongs cannot be remedied by people taking the law into their own hands. Through the Places of Worship Act, Parliament has mandated that historical wrongs shall not be used as instruments to oppress the present and the future. Thus, the act must hold its true nature for the times to come.

THE CONCLUSION: It is an established fact that hinging our energies on the past creates panic and loss of personal peace. For any given instance in the past, present laws or rules shouldn’t be promoting communal hatred. Thus, there needs to be peaceful dispute resolution. Despite precedents that speak otherwise, the higher courts must maintain the status quo. The architecture of today shouldn’t be defined by an arbitrarily chosen portion of its history. Such petitions need to be rejected in the interest of harmony and peace both in present times and in the times to come.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

• “The Parliament, by means of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, has fulfilled its constitutional obligations to uphold the idea of secularism and equality of all religions.” Examine critically.
• “Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 is consciously infringing several Fundamental Rights.” Do you agree? Explain with suitable examples.