NPR needs to be updated again to incorporate changes: Centre (GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Why in news?
- There is a need to update the National Population Register (NPR) again to incorporate the changes due to birth, death and migration for which demographic and other particulars of each family and individual are to be collected, the Union Home Ministry said in its 2021-22 annual report.
Background:
- The NPR, first prepared in 2010 and updated in 2015 by collecting information of all usual residents of the country, according to the Citizenship Rules, 2003, is the first step towards compilation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC).
- The Union government has clarified on multiple occasions that there was no proposal to compile the NRC as of now.
Why it needs updation?
- The NPR is prepared under various provisions of the Citizenship Rules, 2003, framed under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
- In 2015, a few fields such as name, gender, date and place of birth, place of residence and father’s and mother’s name were updated and Aadhaar, mobile and ration card numbers were collected. To incorporate the changes due to birth, death and migration, there is a need to update it again.
- The NPR that has a database of 115 crore residents is to be updated along with the first phase of Census that has been indefinitely postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic.
- The NPR could be updated through self-enumeration as it is proposed to allow residents to update their own data fields after following some authentication protocols on a web portal.
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019:
- The report, a compilation of all the achievements and functions of the Ministry, however, does not mention the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019.
- The legislation, which fast-tracks the citizenship of six non-Muslim undocumented communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India before December 31, 2014, is yet to be implemented as the rules have not been framed yet.
- The 2020-21 report had said that the CAA is a “compassionate and ameliorative legislation” which does not apply to Indian citizens and “therefore, it does not in any way take away or abridge the rights of any Indian citizen”.
- After the CAA was passed, there were apprehensions that if and when a country-wide NRC is done, non-Muslims excluded from the proposed citizens’ register will benefit while excluded Muslims will have to prove their citizenship.
- The government has denied that the CAA and the NRC are linked.
Indian citizenship to minority communities from neighbouring countries:
- In the COVID-hit year of 2021, from April to December, 1,414 citizenship certificates were granted to members of non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
- The Union government delegated its powers to grant Indian citizenship by registration or naturalisation with respect of foreigners belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian or Parsi community from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered India on valid passport and visa to Collectors of 29 districts and Home Secretaries of nine States.
- As many as 2,439 Long-Term Visas (LTVs) were granted by MHA for minority communities from three neighbouring countries between March-December 2021.
- This includes Pakistan (2,193), Afghanistan (237) and Bangladesh (9). The LTV is a precursor to Indian citizenship.
Mastodon
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, it is being reported that many people have started leaving the platform.
As people search for alternatives to Twitter, one social media platform stands out. This is Mastodon, which claims to be the “largest decentralized social network on the Internet.”
Background:
- Elon Musk took several big decisions after just a few days of joining, which irked people because of his plans to monetise basic features or services.
- Twitter has started charging $8 to people for Blue Tick, watching, posting long videos, and other features.
What is Mastodon?
- Founded by developer Eugen Rochko, Mastodon was released in 2016.
- The social media platform’s main appeal was that it was decentralised, open source, and represented a vision of what its founder wanted Twitter to be.
- Rather than being controlled by a CEO or a centralised moderation team, Mastodon users pick “servers” which host their data and let them access the same platform.
- Servers are organised by general or specific topics, including “LGBTQ+,” “Activism,” and even “Furry.” Some are open to join while others require users to get on a waitlist.
- Anyone can submit a server for consideration, in the ambit of Mastodon’s rules. The platform is ad-free and has its timeline arranged in chronological order, rather than relying on an algorithm like Twitter did.
How similar is Mastodon to Twitter?
- While Twitter’s theme revolves around birds, Mastodon has chosen the furry elephant-like mammal that became extinct around 10,000 years back, as its mascot.
- Mastodon users can send “toots” that can be up to 500 characters in length. Users have their own handles and they can share media, re-share toots, favourite them, and bookmark them. Servers have their own administrator.
- However, Mastodon’s relatively tiny user pool has discouraged people from joining.
- They are also concerned about the complicated server structure and a social media set-up that looks more fragmented when compared to Twitter. Furthermore, there are complaints about the user experience and overloaded servers.
Active users on Mastodon:
- Mastodon tweeted that over 2,30,000 users had switched to its platform and that old accounts were being re-activated. There was a 71% increase in monthly active users. Servers were also up by 17%, totalling more than 3,000 in number.
- Mastodon still has a long way to go to catch up to Twitter, which has millions of monthly active users - many of whom are monetisable.
- Some of Mastodon’s early adopters include activists, journalists, and researchers who wanted a Twitter-like experience but one that was less toxic.
Challenges:
- The platform faced challenges that it could not fully control. In 2019, the far-right social media community Gab used Mastodon’s code to build its own network.
- Mastodon slammed Gab for its views and distanced itself, but admitted that it cannot choose who would use its software.
- This raises the question of whether advertisers, brands, and promotional accounts will look at Mastodon as a Twitter replacement.
What is the Indian connection?
- In late 2019, several anti-caste activists and accounts claimed that Twitter censored accounts belonging to marginalised caste and tribe users, and did not take measures to stop those spreading casteist abuse.
- Twitter India addressed what it called a “perceived bias” in a statement but claimed it was impartial.
- Several Indian Twitter users suggested a shift to Mastodon, believing it might take stronger action against caste discrimination and trolls.
- Around the same time, Rochko announced that Mastodon was adding “casteism and advocation of casteism” to its extremely prohibited offences list. However, the Indian migration from Twitter to Mastodon was not impactful.
- Recently, Rochko “tooted” that Mastodon had crossed one million active monthly users. Still, it is uncertain whether this is the start of a social media exodus.
The frontliners of the first 1,000-day window of life
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Context:
- Addressing malnutrition is critical to laying a strong foundation for human development.
First 1000 days:
- Optimal maternal nutrition and infant and young child feeding are the most effective set of interventions in reducing child deaths and disease, preventing malnutrition, in determining cognitive development, and in eventually enabling adult life productivity.
- Specifically, the first 1,000 days of life, i.e., from conception to the first two years of a child’s life, are key as this phase presents a critical window of opportunity in ensuring optimal growth, development, child survival and lifelong health and nutrition. In fact, 80% of brain development takes place in the first 1,000 days of life.
Policy and programmatic efforts:
- To address the persistent high burden of malnutrition, India has been undertaking several policy and programmatic efforts which include the flagship programme, the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment (POSHAN) Abhiyaan (launched in April 2018) under the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD).
- Its overarching goal is to improve nutritional outcomes by focusing on capacity building, improvement of service delivery, community mobilisation and participation, use of technology, and inter-ministerial/inter-departmental convergent planning and review.
- Additionally, there has been an enhanced focus on documentation of interventions coverage in the first 1,000 days, such as registration of pregnancies, antenatal checkup, and exclusive breastfeeding, as compared to the situation in 2015-16.
Evidence-based interventions:
- Evidence tells that for bringing about change in nutrition outcomes, evidence-based interventions need to be delivered with high coverage, continuity (over the first 1,000 days of life and across delivery channels), intensity (multiple interactions), quality and equity.
- The health and nutrition status of women, including the weight and haemoglobin level, age at conception, and levels of multiple micronutrients during periconception period, are critical determinants for the child’s health.
Preconception period care:
- The criticality of preconception care, i.e., care before pregnancy, is acknowledged.
- In 2018, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare worked with Maharashtra and UNICEF to introduce the first ever primary health-care innovation programme to promote the health of women during the preconception period, in the Peth and Sinnar blocks of Nashik district, Maharashtra.
- During the programme, which was completed in 27 months, it was seen that promoting the health of adolescent girls and women not only promotes the health of the newborn but also prevents low birth weight, preterm birth, and newborn deaths.
- Its success led to it being scaled across several districts in the State.
- All such interventions are delivered to the last mile by the network of the frontline work force: Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Auxiliary Nurse-Midwives (ANMs) and Anganwadi Workers (AWWs), who play a key role in empowering the community on health planning and action.
- In many geographies, they are the only access point to basic nutrition and other health services. They are critical in promoting healthy practices, providing on-ground support, and improving awareness.
Engaging fathers:
- For example, during the Poshan Pakhwdaa in March 2022, in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, all families with children below two were able to overcome age-old fears and misconceptions and get their children weighed at the anganwadi centre after multiple and continuous efforts by the AWWs, supported by the lady supervisor.
- Mothers and other relatives such as grandmothers and also fathers were enlightened about the benefits of regular weight measurement.
- Men, especially fathers, also play a very important role in ensuring maternal and newborn health (MNH). They can influence behaviours and good practices around MNH within their households and communities.
- Studies show that mothers are 1.5 times more likely to receive prenatal care in the first trimester when fathers are involved during pregnancy.
Way Forward:
- The momentum for strengthening the nutrition system focuses on regular skilling, supportive supervision and motivation of frontline workers to deliver contextualised, focused and quality nutrition and health services.
- These along with data-driven reviews must be prioritised and sustained at the programme level.
- Because of their deeper understanding on the issues and needs at the grassroots level, their contribution to community health is much more.
- It is crucial to empower frontline workers who are driving change at the last mile.
Supreme Court, in a majority verdict, upholds the EWS quota
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Why in news?
Five judge Bench:
- Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M. Trivedi and J.B. Pardiwala delivered the majority opinions on the five-judge Bench in an hour-long session.
- Chief Justice U.U. Lalit, on his last working day, and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat gave the minority view, which Justice Bhat authored.
Basic Structure of the Constitution:
- On whether such a reservation on the sole basis of economic criterion violated the Basic Structure of the Constitution, Dinesh Justice Maheshwari took the expansive view that reservation was an “instrument of affirmative action by the state” and should not be confined to the SCs, STs, SEBCs, and the non-creamy layer of the OBCs but also include “any class or sections so disadvantaged as to answer the description of ‘weaker section’”.
- Justice Trivedi, on her part, noted that “the legislature understands and appreciates the needs of its own people”.
- The three judges in the majority held that reservation on economic criterion alone did not violate the Basic Structure of the Constitution.
What is EWS quota?
Alteration in Fundamental Rights:
- The 10 per cent EWS quota was created under the Constitution’s 124th Amendment Bill.
- This amendment to Article 15 essentially allows the state to make limited reservations for direct employment and higher education based on economic criteria, and without altering the other quotas marked for SC, ST and OBC categories.
- When the President gave his nod to the Constitution 124th Amendment Bill on January 12, 2019, two fundamental rights were altered as a result.
- While Article 15 of the Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, caste, sex, or place of birth, Article 16 bans discrimination in government employment.
- The amendments, Articles 15 (6) and 16 (6), call for advancing society’s “economically weaker groups.” The amendments also mention Article 46, which seeks to encourage the educational and economic interests of society’s poorer sections.
Additional seats in Educational Institutions:
- To sustain this “extra” 10% quota in educational institutions, the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (HRD) issued instructions for increasing the total number of seats over a period of two years to accommodate the EWS quota, without adversely affecting the proportionate seats of SCs, STs and OBCs.
- The government sanctioned Rs 4,315.15 crores to create additional 2,14,766 seats (1,18,983 additional seats during 2019-20 and 9,783 additional seats during 2020-21) in 158 Central Educational Institutions.
Four questions in EWS judgment:
Can there be quotas based on economic criteria alone?
Majority Opinion:
- Yes. In his opinion, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari said that poverty is an adequate marker of deprivation that the state can address through reservations.
- The SC’s earlier jurisprudence holding that “economic criteria cannot be the sole basis for determination of backwardness” is somewhat restricted to the reservation provided to Social and Economically Backward Classes, and EWS is deemed a separate and distinct category, he said.
- Justice Pardiwala said that while he is “conscious of the fact that the economically weaker sections of the citizens are not declared as socially and economically backward classes (SEBCs) for the purpose of Article 15(4) of the Constitution”, separate reservations are not barred by the Constitution.
- His opinion cited the Right to Education, another constitutional amendment that puts an obligation on the state to provide free and compulsory primary education, as an example of other forms of reservation.
Minority Opinion:
- Justice Ravindra Bhat said while laws that provide benefits based on “only economic criteria” do not by themselves violate the right to equality, the Constitution envisages reservations to only be community-based and not individual- centric.
- So while access “to public goods” such as tax breaks, subsidies can be allowed, reservation in public employment would not be permissible.
- It is inconceivable that the deletion of caste (as long as Indian society believes in and practises the caste system) as a proscribed ground through a constitutional amendment would stand scrutiny.
Is exclusion of SC/ST, SEBC from quota discriminatory?
Majority Opinion:
- No. Justice Maheshwari said that “there cannot be competition of claims for affirmative action based on disadvantages.” Reservation cannot be denied to one section (the EWS) because “that segment is otherwise not suffering from other disadvantages.”
- Justice Pardiwala said that Article 16(4) is exhaustive for reservation in favour of backward classes but the section is not exhaustive of the concept of reservation. The new constitutional amendment introducing another affirmative action method is read as separate and distinct.
Minority Opinion:
- This exclusion is the main ground for striking down the constitutional amendment as per the minority opinion. Justice Bhat gave three reasons why the exclusion of SC/ST/OBC is unconstitutional.
- First, it “others” those subjected to socially questionable and outlawed practices, though they are amongst the poorest sections of society, and goes against the idea of fraternity.
- Second, the exclusion virtually confines SC/ST/OBC within their allocated reservation quotas (15 per cent for SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs, 27 per cent for OBCs).
- Third, it denies the chance of “mobility from the reserved quota (based on past discrimination) to a reservation benefit based only on economic deprivation.”
Can quota for poor breach the 50% ceiling for reservations?
- Several issues in the EWS quota challenge were based on crucial aspects already decided by the Supreme Court in the landmark 1992 Indra Sawhney vs Union of India verdict.
- A nine-judge Bench had upheld 27 per cent quota for OBCs but had struck down the 10 per cent quota based on economic criteria.
- The first key point in that ruling was that “a backward class cannot be determined only and exclusively with reference to economic criterion”. “It may be a consideration or basis along with, and in addition to, social backwardness, but it can never be the sole criterion,” the court had held.
- Second, the SC held that reservation cannot cross 50 per cent, unless a special case was made out in “extraordinary situations and peculiar conditions”.
- In the current case, a five-judge court could not have overruled Indra Sawhney, which was delivered by a larger bench, but found reasoning to uphold the EWS quota.
Majority opinion:
- The majority opinion by Justice Maheshwari held that the 50 per cent ceiling was for backward classes and it “overstretched to the reservation provided for entirely different class, consisting of the economically weaker sections”. “Moreover…this ceiling limit…has not been held to be inflexible and inviolable for all times to come.”
Minority view:
- Although Justice Bhat refrained from expressing a view on whether it is permissible to breach the 50 per cent ceiling, the minority opinion warned that breaching it could “eat up the rule of equality.”
- The minority opinion also stated that going above 50 per cent “becomes a gateway for further infractions…”
Can private colleges be forced to have EWS quota?
- Under Article 15(5) of the Constitution, the state has power to make reservations in private educational institutions.
- Only Justice Maheshwari’s opinion, part of the majority view, engaged with this issue to an extent. “Unaided private institutions, including those imparting professional education, cannot be seen as standing out of the national mainstream. As held in the aforementioned judgments, reservations in private institutions is not per se violative of the basic structure. Thus, reservations as a concept cannot be ruled out in private institutions where education is imparted”.
- The opinion added that Parliament now would have had the benefit of the Supreme Court’s earlier verdict upholding the constitutional amendment that introduced the Right to Education.
