Daily Current Affairs

Athlete Biological Passport programme highlighted (GS Paper 2, Governance)

Why in news?

• Recently, the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) & National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) India hosted the 3rd edition of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) Symposium in New Delhi.

What is Athlete Biological Passport (ABP)?

• Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), a powerful anti-doping tool that monitors selected biological variables over time to reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself.
• It works against doping through enhanced target testing and analysis, investigations, deterrence, and as indirect evidence for use of prohibited methods or substances.

 

When ABP was approved?

• WADA’s Athlete Biological Passport Operating Guidelines (ABP Guidelines) were first approved by WADA’s Executive Committee and took effect on 1 December 2009.
• This first version contained a standardized approach to the profiling of individual Athlete Haematological variables for the detection of blood doping.
• In 2014, the initial system was complemented with the Steroidal Module, which was launched to establish longitudinal profiles of an athlete’s steroid variables measured in urine samples.

 

Key Highlights:

• Round table discussion about recent trends, successes and challenges of ABP program was held amongst the galaxy of ABP experts and focused on the need to implement the ABP program.
• Discussions on ABP included need to create a robust legal framework.
• The major challenges elaborated were resources, funding and reactive follow up testing.

 

About WADA ABP Symposium:

• The first WADA ABP Symposium was hosted by the Anti-Doping Lab Qatar (ADLQ) in November 2015, in Doha, Qatar.
• The second WADA ABP Symposium was organized by the Italian Federation of Sports Medicine (FMSI) and was held from 5-7 November 2018, in Rome, Italy.
• In the 3rd edition being  held in India, over Two hundred participants from 56 Countries participated in the Symposium.

 

Way Forward:

• Hosting the ABP symposium demonstrates India’s capabilities and willingness to contribute towards promoting dope free sports in a bigger way.
• The event is special for India as the country is celebrating 75 years of independence – AzadiKaAmritMahotsav.

 

SC delivers split verdict in Karnataka Hijab ban row

(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)

Why in news?

• Recently, the Supreme Court delivered a split verdict on the hijab ban in Karnataka’s educational institutions, with one judge holding permitting a community to wear its religious symbols will be an “antithesis to secularism” and the other insisting that wearing the Muslim headscarf should be simply a “matter of choice”. 

What is a split verdict?

• A split verdict is passed when the Bench cannot decide one way or the other in a case, either by a unanimous decision or by a majority verdict. Split verdicts can only happen when the Bench has an even number of judges.
• This is why judges usually sit in Benches of odd numbers (three, five, seven, etc.) for important cases, even though two-judge Benches, known as Division Benches are not uncommon.

 

What was the judgement?

• While Justice Hemant Gupta dismissed the appeals challenging the March 15 judgement of the Karnataka High Court which had refused to lift the ban, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia held there shall be no restriction on the wearing of hijab anywhere in the schools and colleges of the state.
• With the apex court delivering a split verdict, the high court’s judgement still holds the field. However, the split verdict held off a permanent resolution of the vexed row over hijab as both judges suggested placing the matter before a larger bench for adjudication.

 

Justice Hemant Gupta:

• In his verdict upholding the March 15 Karnataka High Court ruling validating the ban on wearing hijab in classrooms, he rejected the argument that denying students the right to wear a headscarf also denies them the right to attend classes, saying “it would… not amount to denial of right to education if a student, by choice, does not attend the school.”

• He said “the students are attending an all-girls’ college” and “are at liberty to carry their religious symbols outside the schools but in pre-university college, the students should look alike, feel alike, think alike and study together in a cohesive cordial atmosphere. That is the objective behind a uniform, so as to bring about uniformity in appearances”.
• Upholding the power of the state government to constitute College Development Committees (CDCs) under the Karnataka Education Act, 1973 and delegate the decision to implement the uniform to it as per the February 5, 2022 Government Order (GO), he said the “intent and object” of the GO “is only to maintain uniformity amongst the students by adherence to the prescribed uniform and “is reasonable as the same has the effect of regulation of the right (of freedom of speech and expression) guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a).”
• He reiterated that no fundamental right is absolute and can be curtailed by following due procedure, and that the freedom of conscience and religion under Article 25 is subject to restrictions provided under Article 25(1). “Such right is not just subject to public order, morality and health but also ‘other provisions of Part III’. This would also include Article 14 which provides for equality before law.”
• He also found it unnecessary to send the matter to the nine-judge SC Bench which will examine questions of law arising in the Sabarimala review petitions, saying it was set up “to consider much wider questions”, or to a five-judge Constitution Bench as it does not “raise any substantial question of law”.

 

Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia:

• Setting aside the Karnataka High Court verdict, he sought to interpret the debate from the point of view of promoting diversity, and providing educational opportunities to women.
• He said that “under our Constitutional scheme, wearing a hijab should be simply a matter of Choice.”
• He took exception to the High Court’s finding that the petitioners cannot assert their “fundamental rights” inside a classroom, which it termed a “qualified public place”.The HC had referred to courts, war rooms, defence camps, etc., as other examples of qualified public spaces where freedom of individuals is curtailed as per necessity.
• “Asking a pre university schoolgirl to take off her hijab at her school gate, is an invasion on her privacy and dignity. It is clearly violative of the Fundamental Right given to her under Article 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution of India. This right to her dignity and her privacy she carries in her person, even inside her school gate or when she is in her classroom. It is still her Fundamental Right, not a “derivative right” as has been described by the High Court.”
• He referred to submissions that the fallout of the hijab ban has been that some students have not been able to appear in their Board examinations, and many others have had to seek transfer to other schools, most likely madrasas, where they may not get the same standard of education.

 

Background:

• On March 15, the high court had dismissed the petitions filed by a section of Muslim students of the Government Pre-University Girls College in Karnataka’s Udupi seeking permission to wear the hijab inside classrooms, ruling it is not a part of the essential religious practice in Islamic faith.

 

Way Forward:

• In case of a split verdict, the case is heard by a larger Bench.The larger Bench to which a split verdict goes can be a three-judge Bench of the High Court, or an appeal can be preferred before the Supreme Court.
• In the case of the hijab verdict, the CJI, who is the ‘master of the roster’, will constitute a new, larger Bench to hear the matter.

Falling reserves and the bogey of the RBIs role

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

Why in news?

• There is a widespread misconception that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been depleting India’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves to defend the rupee.
• The RBI cannot simply misspendIndia’s forex reserves, held mostly in dollars, by charging its “nostro” account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York. (A nostro account is an account that a bank holds with another bank in a foreign country.)

Prevailing misconception:

• The RBI is the custodian of India’s forex reserves and is responsible for managing their investments economically. It may not have been adventurous in switching currencies to boost the value of reserves.
• But to suggest that the RBI has depleted India’s forex reserves from $642 billion to $537 billion, i.e., from September 8, 2021 to September 30, 2022, by intervening (selling dollars) in India’s inter-bank forex market is manifestly erroneous. 

How dollar/rupee rate is market determined?

• The RBI’s intervention and dollar/rupee exchange rate are surely linked, but the question is of depletion of forex reserves.
• The market players are only banks licensed by the RBI, and the RBI. Individuals and corporates cannot enter the market. They can deal only with their respective banks.
• Therefore, the RBI dominates the market, being the regulator, a player and the jury. Thus, it is easy to argue that the dollar/rupee rate is “market determined” and that the RBI has no role in it.
• Section 40 of the RBI Act, 1934 (“Transactions in foreign exchange”) stipulates that the Central Government orders the “rate” at which the RBI shall buy or sell forex to banks (authorised persons). This “rate”, in turn, will be governed by India’s “obligations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)”. The dollar/rupee rate has thus been subjugated to the United States from British India days.
• It is little wonder then that the rupee fell from ₹8/dollar to about ₹82/dollar (in 2022), from November 1981, when the IMF approved the biggest ever $5 billion Special Drawing Rights (about $6.25 billion dollars) loan to India. Although ₹100/dollar is  far away, the target is achievable. Such is the hegemony of dollar holders to slam poor rupee holders to make them poorer still.

 

Forex market:

• The forex market is regulated by the RBI with impregnable exchange control regulations. All the player (banks) are required to be square or near square in their forex positions (spot or forward) at the close of business hours each day.
• This “overnight limit” is prescribed for each bank by the RBI. Even during the day, the prescribed “daylight limit” cannot be breached. The RBI enforces these limits strictly.
• Assume that on a particular day the RBI sells (intervenes) one billion dollars in the market and one bank buys these dollars to remit them abroad for an importer (goods/services) customer. If that be so, then the funds would have gone abroad anyway since the importer, holding an import licence, can remit funds abroad as a matter of right.
• So, one billion of forex reserves depletion is caused not because of the RBI’s intervention but because of the import licence granted by the Ministry of Commerce.

 

On speculation:

• The second possibility could be of the purchasing bank wishing to speculate. This possibility is impermissible since the RBI does not permit a bank to purchase dollars from the RBI and speculate in the interbank market.
• Selling these dollars in the overseas cross currency marketis also prohibited by the central bank. So, unless there is demand from a bank’s customers to remit dollars abroad, the RBI will just not be able to sell the dollars in the interbank market due its own regulations.
• Sometimes the RBI intervenes (sells dollars) on the basis of a tacit understanding with another bank to calm dollar/rupee volatility.
• f such a bank buys $1 billion without any merchant base to effect remittances abroad, then that bank would try to sell these dollars to other banks which need to remit funds abroad for their own customers. Before the close of business hours, the bank has to offload excess dollars to the RBI to remain within the “overnight limit”.
• Therefore, the RBI’s intervention cannot deplete forex reserves. Instead, the cause of forex reserves depletion is an unimaginative import/export policy of the Ministry of Commerce without keeping the RBI in the loop.

 

Conclusion:

• India’s twin deficits, trade and current accounts, are matters of concern. It is imperative that trade control regulations (flow of goods/services) and exchange control regulations (flow of funds in exactly an equal and opposite direction) are administered rigorously by enmeshing the two, preferably, by a separate cell within the RBI.
• “Control” may not be a popular word, but India remained unharmed after the Lehman Brothers crisis in 2008 only by deft handling of exchange control regulations by the RBI. The future is surely not dark, but uncertain.
• Finally, policymakers deserve better inputs on the sensitive matters impacting India’s economy.

 

Violence in Haiti & the UNs rapid action force

(GS Paper 2, International Relation)

Why in news?

• Recently, the United Nations Secretary-General has sent a letter to the UN Security Council calling for a multinational “rapid action force" led by a member state to help Haiti’s police control widespread gang violence, which has killed hundreds of people in recent months.

 

Background:

• Violence by armed gangs is raging in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and several other parts of the country amid a political vacuum, with armed groups having taken control of most of the capital and the biggest fuel terminal, blockading basic services such as food, water, and health care.
• The situation has been worsened by a cholera outbreak and widespread protests against the current government.

 

Haiti’s historical background:

• Haiti is a country of nearly 11 million mostly French and Creole-speaking people in the Caribbean, bordered by the Dominican Republic.
• Once the richest of the French colonies, Haiti is now the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, prone to national disasters and political instability.
• After being under French rule for two centuries, Haiti became the first postcolonial black republic in 1804 but had to pay reparations to France for over 120 years.
• It was also under United States occupation from 1915 to 1934, when the then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt withdrew troops from the country.
• It saw multiple unstable governments before and after U.S. occupation and dictatorial rule by François Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude a 29-year dictatorship which began in 1957. Their reign was marked by widespread corruption and human rights violations, leaving nearly 30,000 people dead or missing. 

Political background:

• Haiti got its first democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1991 but he was deposed twice in coups, and exiled in 2004.
• Just as Haiti started to develop and head toward political stability, it was struck by a devastating earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the effects of which the country is still reeling from today.
• The country’s former President Michel Martelly took charge after the 2011 election which were shrouded in allegations of meddling. The term of the country’s legislature and president ended in 2015, but Mr. Martelly ruled by decree for over a year.
• In 2016, in a general election with a voter turnout of 21%, JovenelMoïse, a member of Mr. Martelly’s party, was elected President while a money laundering investigation was underway against him.
• Mr. Moïse faced multiple and widespread public protests during his term for high taxes and fuel prices, and in 2019 the country’s Superior Court of Auditors alleged that Mr. Moïse and other officials embezzled millions of dollars.
• In July 2021, Mr. Moïse was assassinated at his private residence in Port-au-Prince by unidentified armed assailants.

 

The UN Peacekeeping Mission to Haiti:

• In 2004, the U.N. started its peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which ended in 2017.
• The peacekeepers, previously posted in Nepal, were blamed for introducing a cholera outbreak. After years of demands, the U.N and the then Secretary-General apologised in 2016 for introducing the disease into the country.
• Mr. Ban said the U.N. had moral responsibility towards those who suffered due to cholera, including around 10,000 people who died of the disease.
• U.N peacekeepers in Haiti were also accused of committing sexual violence. The U.N. itself substantiated the sexual violence claims.
• Post the withdrawal of the peacekeeping force, UN police were also deployed in 2017 and left the country in 2019.
• Secretary-General’s current proposal is not for a UN deployment, but for a multi-national task force to help the Haitian National Police combat gang violence.

 

Why has gang violence flared up?

• Against the backdrop of years of military interference and a coup, Haiti disbanded its army under then-President Aristide in 1995.
• Gangs are said to have flourished under political patronage after this period. Mr. Moïse and his predecessor Mr. Martelly started to reinstitute the army, but a large number of soldiers could not be recruited.
• The gang members have outnumbered and outgunned the Haitian army and have more advanced weapons than the army.
• The political vacuum and instability increased as the elections scheduled for 2019 were postponed due to a political gridlock between the country’s legislature and executive.
• Mass public protests have been taking place since 2019 demanding a stable government and opposing high levels of poverty, corruption, and unemployment exacerbated by the pandemic. The protests have often turned violent and resulted in looting.
• The political impasse has allowed for gangs to gain footing and increase their strongholds.
• Gangs have now taken control of most of Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country, with around 150-200 gangs operating in the capital itself, hindering access to food and other aid.

 

The humanitarian crisis:

• Since mid-September, a coalition of gangs has blockaded the Varreux terminal, the country’s biggest and most crucial fuel terminal, protesting Mr. Henry’s announcement that his government would cut fuel subsidies owing to their high costs. Gangs have also blocked ports which facilitate the import of the country’s food and other essentials.
• The Varreux terminal is the main entry point for fuel in the country, but the blocking of its entrance has led to a massive fuel shortage, forcing several of the country’s health centres and hospitals toclose down as they depend on fuel-powered generators for electricity.
• UNICEF said in September that due to health facilities becoming inoperative, nearly 22,100 children under the age of five and over 28,000 newborns, were at risk of not getting “essential health care services” in the coming four months.
• The movement of food and water tankers to supply clean water to areas has also been restricted by the blockade and gang rule. This was further exacerbated as cases of cholera were detected for the first time in three years, marking the start of another outbreak.