Daily Current Affairs

Droupadi Murmu’s swearing-in as 15th President of India

Why in news?

·         On 25 July, Droupadi Murmu sworn in as the first tribal President of the country.

Details:

·         At 64, Murmu is the youngest and India’s first president to be born after Independence.

·         She who won the Presidential elections with 64 per cent of the votes against the Opposition’s pick of Yashwant Sinha.

·         She was administered the oath by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana in the Central Hall of Parliament. 

Why swearing in on 25^th July?

·         Records show that since 1977, successive Presidents have taken the oath of office on 25 July.

·         Murmu’s swearing-in on 25 July makes her the 10th successive President to take oath on 25 July since 1977. 

Significance of 25 July:

·         There is no written rule as to why presidents since 1977 have been sworn in on this date.

·         The tenure of outgoing President of India, Ram Nath Kovind ended on 24 July, paving the way for Droupadi Murmu’s ascension to the topmost position in the country.

·         Incidentally, Kovind was also sworn in as the 14th President of India on 25 July 2017.

·         Since Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the sixth President of India, took the oath on 25 July back in 1977, this practice has continued.

·         Successive Presidents such as Giani Zail Singh, R Venkataraman, Shankar Dayal Sharma, KR Narayanan, APJ Abdul Kalam, Pratibha Patil, Pranab Mukherjee and Ram Nath Kovind have taken oath on 25 July.

Tribal revolutions:

·         She invoked four tribal revolutions that had strengthened tribal contribution to the freedom struggle. 

Santhal revolution:

·         On June 30, 1855, over 10,000 Santhals were mobilised by their leaders — Kanho Murmu, Chand Murmu, Bhairab Murmu and Sidho Murmu – to revolt against the East India Company over oppression by revenue officials, zamindars, and corrupt moneylenders.

·         The landmark event in tribal history, referred to as Santhal Hul, took place in Bhognadih village in present-day Jharkhand. Soon after their open rebellion, Santhals took to arms to resist imposition of East India Company laws.

·         The seeds of the protracted rebellion, however, were sown in 1832 where the East India Company created Damin-i-koh region in the forested belt of Rajmahal hills, and invited the Santhals to settle there. Over the years, Santhals found themselves at the receiving end of exploitative practices aided by the British.

·         After the rebellion broke out in 1855, both sides continued clashing till the uprising was crushed in 1856. The British defeated the Santhals using modern firearms and war elephants in decisive action in which both Sidho and Kanho died. 

Paika rebellion:

·         The 1817 Paika Rebellion in Odisha’s Khurda is referred to as the “original” first war of Indian Independence.

·         That year, the Paikas – a class of military retainers traditionally recruited by the kings of Odisha – revolted against the British colonial rulers mainly over being dispossessed of their land holdings.

·         In the run-up to the revolt, the British had dethroned and exiled the Khurda king in 1803, and then started introducing new revenue settlements.

·         For Paikas, who were into rendering martial services in return for hereditary rent-free land (nish-kar jagirs) and titles, this disruption meant losing both their estates and social standing. 

Revolt:

·         The trigger for the revolt came as some 400 Kondhs descended from the Ghumusar area to rise against the British. Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar Mohapatra Bharamarbar Rai, the highest-ranking military general of the banished Khurda king, led an army of Paikas to join the uprising of the Kondhs.

·         The Paikas set fire to government buildings in Banapur, killed policemen and looted the treasury and the British salt agent’s ship docked on the Chilika. They then proceeded to Khurda and killed several British officials.

·         Over the next few months, the Paikas fought bloody battles at several places, but the colonial army gradually crushed the revolt.

·         Bakshi Jagabandhu escaped to the jungles, and stayed out of reach of the British until 1825, when he finally surrendered under negotiated terms. 

Kol revolt:

·         The Kols, tribal people from the Chhota Nagpur area, rose in revolt against the British in 1831.

·         The trigger here too was gradual takeover of tribal land and property by non-tribal settlers who were aided by new land laws.

·         The simmering discontent over economic exploitation of the original inhabitants, led to an uprising led by Buddhu Bhagat, Joa Bhagat and Madara Mahato among others. The Kols were joined by other tribes like the Hos, Mundas and Oraons.

·         The tribals fought with traditional weapons taking the battle to colonial forces who finally overpowered them with modern weaponry.

·         The uprising, which spread to areas like Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Palamau, Manbhum and continued for almost two years before being snuffed out, mainly targeted colonial officials and private money-lenders. 

Bhil uprising:

·         After the British intruded into the Bhil territory in Maharashtra’s Khandesh region, the tribals pushed back fearing exploitation under the new regime in 1818.

·         The revolt was led by their leader, Sewaram and was brutally crushed using the British military might.

Right to be forgotten

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

Context:

·         Expanding the ambit of right to privacy and the right to be forgotten, the Supreme Court ordered its registry to work out a mechanism allowing details of an estranged couple be removed from search engines and the internet.

A bench of justices directed that the needful be done within three weeks so that the details of the parties are not visible on search engines.

Background:

·         The apex court made the plea on the petition of an estranged wife who contended that the availability of the names, addresses and other personal information on the web violated her right to be forgotten which has been acknowledged as party of the right to privacy by the top court in its landmark 2017 judgment.

·         A bench said her personal information, such as her husband’s name and residential address should either be deleted or masked from the judgment of her case on the SC website, from where it has been shared by different online platforms. 

What is right to be forgotten?

·         The right to be forgotten, also known as the right to erasure, was established in the European Union in 2014.

·         In India, the Personal Data Protection Bill provides for a mechanism to implement this concept, though it is not an absolute right.

·         While the right is not recognised by law, it has been described as a part of the right to privacy in the landmark 2017 Supreme Court judgment in the KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India case.

·         In 2017, a nine-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice JS Khehar ruled that ‘right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution’.

·         The Supreme Court in its verdict had noted the existence of such a right. Referring to a regulation which had allowed the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to retain authentication transaction data for six months and archive the same for five years, the court noted the infringement of such a right.

Since the Supreme Court verdict, several cases have been filed in high courts across the country demanding the right to be forgotten.

High courts and the right to be forgotten:

·         The Delhi High Court is hearing a clutch of petitions regarding the right to be forgotten, while the Kerala and Orrisa high courts have also passed judgments relating to this right.

Issues raised by Google India:

·         Google India, speaking before the Delhi High Court, argued that a blanket order cannot determine the width of the right to be forgotten.

·         The ‘right to be forgotten’ has various shapes and shades, that passing of protective orders would depend on the facts and circumstances of each case, Google India’s counsel argued in the high court.

·         It spoke of a 2021 decision of the Delhi HC in which an Indian-American citizen acquitted of charges under the anti-drug law asked for the judgment to be deleted online as he was unable to gain employment.

Related judgements:

·         The Orrisa high court in 2020, hearing a case of intimate pictures being shared, used the old toothpaste analogy while calling for such a right.

·         The Kerala High Court similarly in 2021 allowed deletion of such personal details from a Google search result, as per The Print.

·         Indeed, the Centre in 2021 told the Delhi High Court in 2021 that the right to privacy has been recognised as a fundamental right in the KS Puttaswamy judgment (2017) and that the ‘right to be forgotten’ is evolving in India.

Right to be forgotten abroad:

·         The EU in 2018 adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Article 17 of which provides for the right to erasure of certain categories of personal data that which is considered no longer necessary, that for which consent has been withdrawn or processing of which has been objected to, personal data unlawfully processed, and data where there is a legal obligation for erasure.

·         However, the regulations limit the right to erasure in certain circumstances, including for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, for archiving purposes “in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance” and for establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

·         Russia in 2015 enacted a law that allows users to force a search engine to remove links to personal information on grounds of irrelevancy, inaccuracy and violation of law, while Turkey and Siberia have recognised it to ‘some extent’.

·         Courts in Spain and England have also given verdicts on the subject.

What was the case before the Supreme Court?

·         The couple from Karnataka married in 2006. The woman, in 2016 complaint to the police, claimed that the husband had contracted a sexually transmitted disease before their wedding but concealed it from her.

·         She said she contracted the disease as well and claiming her consent was fraudulently acquired by her spouse who hid her disease accused him of rape.

·         The high court had stated that the law gave immunity to husbands on the offence of rape quashed the case.

·         The woman then challenged the decision in Supreme Court, which rejected her petition. She later filed a new petition asking all personally identifiable details about her and the case be concealed.

·         She said it is impossible for her to protect her privacy and live with dignity with personal details about her marriage, history of a sexually transmitted disease and other such information readily available on the internet.

·         She said the information being out there was also causing mental trauma to her and to the couple’s child born in 2010, and said that keeping the husband’s name public too reveals her identity.

Reform bail law, but make the right diagnosis first

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

Context:

·         Over 75% of India’s prison population are undertrials while overcrowding in Indian prisons stands at 118%. These stark realities are often cited to represent the scale of the crisis in India’s criminal justice system.

·         The Supreme Court of India recently acknowledged, in Satender Kumar Antil vs CBI, the ineffectiveness of India’s bail system and its contribution to this crisis.

Presumption of innocence:

·         The Court noted that despite repeated guidelines on bail law, things have not changed much on the ground. The Court provided comprehensive guidelines on laws related to bail, such as mandating timelines for the disposal of bail applications and laying emphasis on the need to enact a separate legislation.

·         The judgment noted that crowding jails with undertrial prisoners ignored the principle of ‘presumption of innocence’ and that ‘bail not jail’ should be the norm. However, there is still a need to reflect on why these established principles are honoured more in their breach than observance.

Lack of Empirical evidence:

·         Any reimagination of the law on bail needs to first understand the exact nature of the problem that results in large-scale undertrial incarceration. This assessment needs to be based on multiple parameters and have no real empirical evidence on how each of these impacts the issue.

·         What proportion of undertrials are applying for bail? What proportion of bail applications are accepted or rejected, and on what grounds? Is bail compliance a far bigger problem than denial of bail? These are some fundamental empirical questions which need answers.

·         An effective bail law must be based on the correlation of these answers with variables such as the demographics of undertrials, category of offences and timelines for bail, and also address socio-economic and structural barriers.

·         The foundations of the current bail law ensure that it is anti-poor and disproportionately burdens those from marginalised backgrounds. The solutions must be based on a deep and realistic understanding of the problem.

Lack of safeguards:

·         The Court alleged that effective enforcement of safeguards against arbitrary arrest would eliminate the need to seek bail from courts.

·         However, these safeguards exclude a significant proportion of arrested persons, especially those from disadvantaged sections of society, who form the large majority of undertrial prisoners.

·         For example, the arrest of a person is justified as ‘necessary’ if the police have ‘reasons to believe’ that it is required to ensure their presence in court. Such vague justifications put migrants, persons without assets or those with no contact with family at higher risk of arrest because of their socio-economic conditions.

·         Data from the Fair Trial Programme (FTP) in Yerwada and Nagpur central prisons can be instructive here. Of the undertrials (2,313) represented by the FTP , 18.50% were migrants, 93.48% did not own any assets, 62.22% did not have any contact with family, and 10% had a history of previous incarceration.

·         Evidently, a significant proportion from the sample would be unjustifiably excluded from protections against arrest and contribute to the large proportion of undertrials in our prisons.

Approach to bail adjudication:

·         The power to grant bail is largely based on the court’s discretion and depends on the facts of each case. The Supreme Court has time and again laid down principles for guiding the exercise of such discretion by courts in deciding bail applications.

·         While these guidelines lay stress upon the need to release applicants on bail, they also validate the denial of bail or imposition of onerous bail conditions based on the gravity of the offence, character of the accused and likelihood of the accused absconding or tampering with evidence.

·         In all such cases, courts rarely exercise their discretion for granting bail and are likely to take a more stringent approach against release on bail.

·         Despite existing guidelines, courts do not usually record reasons for rejecting bail; the rationale behind how courts factor in offence-based and person-based considerations in deciding bail applications remains unclear.

·         This is important because marginalised persons bear the brunt of these broad exceptions. They are either denied bail or granted bail with onerous conditions, in absolute disregard of their realities.

·         Bail conditions in the nature of cash bonds, surety bond, proof of property ownership and solvency, as is commonplace, are at odds with the reality of undertrial prisoners languishing in jails.

Challenges in bail compliance:

·         A large number of undertrials continue to remain in prison despite being granted bail due to challenges in complying with bail conditions.

·         Lack of means to arrange for money/property and local sureties are the most significant reasons accounting for an undertrial’s inability to comply with bail conditions.

·         However, factors such as lack of residence and identity proof, abandonment by family and limitations in navigating the court system also undermine an undertrial’s ability to comply with bail conditions. Compliance with bail conditions and ensuring presence in courts for the overwhelmingly structurally disadvantaged undertrials requires constant handholding, as is evident by the FTP’s interventions in the past three years. This is a crucial aspect of ensuring last mile delivery of justice that the extant bail law does not consider.

·         The experience shows that in 14% of cases, undertrials were unable to comply with bail conditions and remained in prison despite being granted bail. In almost 35% of these cases, it took over a month after obtaining the bail for undertrials to comply with bail conditions and secure their release.

Way Forward:

·         The bail system, as it currently operates, has flawed assumptions that every arrested person will be propertied or have access to propertied social connections. It presumes that the risk of financial loss is necessary to ensure the presence of the accused in court.

·         Such assumptions have the effect of rendering the rule of ‘bail not jail’ meaningless for a significant proportion of undertrial persons.

·         For any bail law to effectively provide relief, a careful re-evaluation of the said presumptions is imperative. There is an urgent need for bail reform but it would be counterproductive to undertake a reform exercise without first developing the empirical basis to understand and diagnose the problem at hand.

Backsliding on climate action

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

Context:

·         Countries in Europe led by Germany, Austria and the Netherlands are cranking up their coal plants again. Coal exports to Europe are surging.

·         Fossil fuels are making a comeback and countries are rejecting the European Union (EU)’s plan to reduce natural gas consumption by 15%. 

Causes:

·         Dutch, Polish and other European farmers are protesting against emission cuts from agriculture. Renewables are nowhere near meeting the rising power demand in summer or winter, with record high temperatures now.

·         While the current problems are being blamed on the Ukraine conflict, and more specifically Russia, they actually started when power prices began surging well before anything happened in Ukraine.

Downgrading commitments:

Case of United States:

·         In the U.S. too, the Senate and the Supreme Court have struck blows to climate action. And in the U.S. too, prices of fuel started increasing from 2021. This is causing inflation. Energy security is nowhere near.

·         Fossil fuels are making a quiet comeback, since the strength of the U.S. is its oil and gas industry. Recently, there was a ‘re-calibration’ of U.S. policy towards the Gulf.

·         The U.S.’s choice is between concentrating on its economy and getting it on track for its people or fighting hard against climate change and facing an irate electorate in November.

Comeback to fossil fuels:

·         The West had rushed to draw down on fossil fuels even before technology for renewables were in place.

·         Many developing countries are also facing unrest due to skyrocketing energy prices, which are threatening their governments.

India’s commitments:

·         It was Indian Prime Minister who made ambitious pledges on climate change in 2021 in Glasgow at the Conference of the Parties (COP).

·         Further, when India fought to make the COP language closer to our current energy-mix reality by calling for a ‘phase down’ of coal rather than a ‘phase out’, the COP President supposedly ‘struggled to hold back tears’.

·         With countries of the developed world almost sure to renege on their 2030 Paris Agreement commitments, countries of the developing world must do everything to hold the countries of the developed world to their commitments and not get unwittingly drawn into their game.

·         In fact, the EU Commissioner of Climate Action and Energy, helpfully signalled that the U.S. can downgrade its pledge under the Paris deal. G-7 leaders met to only backtrack on their pledges.

What can the developing countries do to stop this backsliding by the developed world?

·         The Western nations have already started reinterpreting the Paris Agreement and look to downgrade their commitments. If they pull back, what will happen to the Paris deal aim of limiting global warming to below the 2°C limit (leave alone 1.5°C)?

·         There is need to understand how the concept of net zero is being cleverly misinterpreted.

·         To bring this to the attention of the Global South, India, China and eight other countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America made a cross-regional statement on ‘global net zero’ on June 7 at the UN on World Environment Day.

‘Global Peaking’:

·         Article 4 of the Paris Agreement defines ‘Global Peaking’ thus: “In order to achieve the long-term temperature goal set out in Article 2, Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for developing country Parties.”

·         The cross-regional statement by the 10 countries says, “We believe that the word ‘global peaking’ is a conscious and considered insertion in the Paris Agreement text with full recognition of the fact that peaking will take longer for developing countries. The developed countries, given their historical emissions, will have to peak first. That’s why the reference is to ‘global peaking’ and not ‘individual peaking’.

·         It becomes clear that a global net zero, where developing countries take longer to reach net zero, can only be achieved if developed countries reach net zero earlier than 2050. Therefore, developed countries must reach net zero well before 2050 in order to achieve overall global net-zero target by around mid-century.

·         The statement, therefore, calls on developed countries to “do a net negative” on mitigation by 2050 rather than just “net zero”, if they are serious about fighting climate change. In effect, the West needs to do a net minus and not just net zero. To claim that by achieving net zero in 2050, they will keep the temperature within the 2°C limit is a chimera.

·         Due to the efforts of India, the phrase used in the 2021 summit-level declarations at both G-20 and Quad is ‘global net zero’.

Global stocktake of Paris Agreement:

·         The “global stocktake” of the Paris Agreement will be done in 2023 to assess the world’s collective progress towards achieving the long-term goals (Article 14).

·         In the current scenario, this stocktake may well provide the developed countries the right forum to shift the burden of their mitigation commitments on developing countries, knowing well that they will not be able to meet theirs by 2030.

Way Forward:

·         India stands as beacon of hope in renewables. It is time for all developing countries, especially the small island developing states, to make sure that the developed world doesn’t backslide on its commitments on mitigation yet again.

·         COP 27 in Egypt gives the opportunity to hold their feet to the fire. It is time for the developed world to make net minus pledges.