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The Supreme Court said that Governors seriously undermine democracy if they use their constitutional office to call for a trust vote, citing dissension within a ruling political party, and precipitate the fall of a legitimately established and functioning government.
A Governor must be aware of the fact that his very calling for a trust vote may precipitate the loss of majority for a government.
Calling for a trust vote may itself lead to the toppling of a government… Governors must not lend their offices for effectuating a particular result.
The Governor cannot enter into any area by which his action would precipitate the fall of a government,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a Constitution Bench, observed.
The Bench was referring to then Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s call for a trust vote in the Assembly, which eventually led to the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray government and the appointment of Eknath Shinde as the Chief Minister in June 2022.
Editorial
China, India and the promise of the power of two (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
The year 2023 marks a high point in India’s diplomacy, with its presidentship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the G-20.
The focus is also on China which held “two sessions” recently: the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Here are some insights into China’s development.
China is advancing modernisation on all fronts. Here, the path to modernisation is based on China’s practices with a focus on high-quality development.
It means the modernisation of a huge population, where there is common prosperity for all, material and cultural-ethical advancement, harmony between humanity and nature, and peaceful development. This will spell new opportunities to all countries in the world, especially neighbouring countries.
As two neighbouring and ancient civilisations, with a combined population of 2.8 billion, China and India are representatives of developing countries and emerging economies.
India and China are both in the process of national rejuvenation and a crucial period of modernisation where challenges need to be overcome and problems need to be solved. China and India have far more common interests than differences.
The first is “steady growth”. In 2022, China’s economy grew by 3% with a total of 12.06 million urban jobs added. China’s GDP increased to 121 trillion yuan (approximately $18 trillion), registering an annual growth rate of 5.2% over the past five years and an annual growth of 6.2% over the past decade with GDP increasing by nearly 70 trillion yuan. China’s economic strength is steadily reaching new heights.
The second is “people’s well-being”. As a result of continued efforts of the past eight years, China has historically resolved absolute poverty, with the alleviation of close to 100 million rural residents from poverty.
Over 70% of the government’s expenditure went toward ensuring people’s well-being. Basic old age insurance covers 1.05 billion people, an increase of 140 million. Living standards continue to witness new improvements.
The third is “opening up”. In 2022, China’s total volume of trade in goods exceeded 40 trillion yuan, registering an annual growth rate of 8.6%.
China’s actual use of foreign capital was up by 8% and the country remained one of the top destinations for foreign investors. The overall tariff level continues to fall, from 9.8% to 7.4%. China’s doors to the outside world are opening even wider.
Sharp divides (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
The joint appearance by the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, at the Naval Base Point Loma, U.S., this week, and their detailing about their “AUKUS” trilateral defence pact are significant in optics and substance, suggesting a new chapter in the global great power rivalry.
There will be three phases in the agreement in the Indo-Pacific region, first announced in September 2021. Beginning this year, the U.S. and the U.K. navies will embed Australian personnel, and increase port visits to Australia to train together.
In the second phase, U.S. and U.K. nuclear submarines will travel rotationally to Australia, and the U.S. will sell Australia up to five nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines.
Subsequently, a new submarine called the SSN-AUKUS, will be built and used by all three navies, with interoperable workings.
The deal, the biggest for Australia, using British design and U.S. technology, is expected to cost $368 billion. It is not hard to imagine who the target of such an alliance is.
In his speech, U.K. leader Rishi Sunak said that the most recent challenges to the world have come from “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, China’s growing assertiveness [and] the destabilising behaviour of Iran and North Korea”. The new alliance is seen as a counter to China exerting its claims on Taiwan, with the idea that a naval fleet including nuclear-powered submarines based in Australia would be able to reach the South China Sea quickly.
Opinion
A sustainable model for women’s leadership (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 1, Society)
Today the world is home to a transformative generation of 900 million adolescent girls and young women poised to shape the future of work and growth.
If this cohort of young women could be equipped with the right resources and opportunities to nurture the 21st century skills, they would become the largest segment of women leaders, change-makers, entrepreneurs, and innovators in history.
Given the many socio-economic barriers that adolescent girls confront from their earliest years, we believe that the work to cultivate their agency — for education systems to expose them to new age skill sets, critical thinking, and leadership qualities — must begin early.
India, home to one of the largest generations of girls and young women, has undertaken wide-ranging initiatives across the critical domains of education, health, digital and financial inclusion, leadership building, and have established feasible frameworks to help in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 5, which envisions the world to be a more gender equal place by 2030.
To unleash the gender dividend and create conditions for female leadership to flourish, women at all levels of society must have inclusion in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), bodily autonomy and safety, shared responsibility within the household, and equal participation in decision-making spaces.
Explainer
On reservation for women in politics (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1, Women Empowerment)
A day before her appearance in front of the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi liquor policy case, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K. Kavitha launched a six-hour hunger strike on March 10 seeking early passage of the long-pending Women’s Reservation Bill.
The protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi was inaugurated by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury. More than 10 parties participated in the protest, including the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). The Bharatiya Janata Party said the protest was “preposterous” and termed it a ploy to change the narrative on the Delhi excise case.
The issue of reservation for women in politics can be traced back to the Indian national movement. In 1931, in their letter to the British Prime Minister, submitting the official memorandum jointly issued on the status of women in the new Constitution by three women’s bodies, leaders Begum Shah Nawaz and Sarojini Naidu wrote, “To seek any form of preferential treatment would be to violate the integrity of the universal demand of Indian women for absolute equality of political status.”
The issue of women’s reservation came up in Constituent Assembly debates as well, but it was rejected as being unnecessary. It was assumed that a democracy would accord representation to all groups.
For instance, in 1947, noted freedom fighter Renuka Ray said, “We always held that when the men who have fought and struggled for their country’s freedom came to power, the rights and liberties of women too would be guaranteed”.
However, in the following decades, it became clear that this was not to be the case. As a consequence, women's reservation became a recurrent theme in policy debates.
For instance, the Committee of the Status of Women in India, set up in 1971, commented on the declining political representation of women in India.
Though a majority within the Committee continued to be against reservation for women in legislative bodies, all of them supported reservation for women in local bodies. Slowly, many State governments began announcing reservations for women in local bodies.
News
Foreign lawyers, firms can operate in India, says BCI (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has opened up law practice in India to foreign lawyers and law firms.
The BCI, a statutory body governing legal practice in India, has framed the ‘Bar Council of India Rules for Registration of Foreign Lawyers and Foreign Law Firms in India, 2021’ to enable foreign lawyers and law firms “to practise foreign law, diverse international law and international arbitration matters in India on the principle of reciprocity in a well-defined, regulated and controlled manner”.
The BCI said that the move would benefit Indian lawyers, whose standards of proficiency in law are comparable to the international standards.
The legal fraternity in India is not likely to suffer any disadvantage in case law practice in India is opened up to foreign lawyers in a restricted and well-controlled and regulated manner on the principle of reciprocity as it would be mutually beneficial for lawyers from India and abroad, and these rules are an attempt by Bar Council of India in this direction.
It said that the rules would also help to address the concerns expressed about the flow of Foreign Direct Investment into the country and would help make India a hub for international commercial arbitration.
The rules prescribe that foreign lawyers and firms would not be entitled to practise law in India without registration with the BCI.
Current procedure for inclusion on ST list adequate: govt (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Tribal Affairs Ministry on Wednesday insisted once again that the current procedure for inclusion of communities on the Scheduled Tribes list was “adequate”.
It was responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha, which raised concern about the need for a revision in the criteria and procedure for inclusion on the list.
According to the modalities for inclusion first framed in 1999, the proposal for inclusion must originate from the respective State or Union Territory government.
Following this, the proposal is sent to the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry, which sends it to the Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI).
If the ORGI approves the inclusion, the proposal is forwarded to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.
Only after the concurrence of these institutions, will the proposal go forward to the Cabinet to bring in the appropriate amendment to the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950.
In response to an RTI query, the ORGI had said in January, 2022 that it continues to follow the criteria set out by the Lokur Committee in 1965 to decide whether a community can be included in the ST list.
These criteria include: indications of “primitive traits”, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness.
Both the procedure and criteria for inclusion of communities had been strongly criticised by an internal government task force formed in February 2014, for being “obsolete”, “condescending”, “dogmatic” and “rigid”.
Two years to shift to new minimum age of marriage (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The minimum age of marriage for women will be raised to 21 two years after the Prohibition of Child Marriage Amendment Bill, 2021, is notified following its passage in Parliament, the Union government said on Wednesday. This gap will provide ample time to citizens to prepare for this “momentous”.
The Bill, now with a Parliamentary Standing Committee, envisions the same minimum age of marriage for women and men. It has provisions to make consequential amendments relating to age of marriage in the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872; the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936; the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937; the Special Marriage Act, 1954; the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; and the Foreign Marriage Act, 1969, the Women and Child Development Ministry told the Rajya Sabha.
The Ministry said the task force constituted before the introduction of the Bill in Parliament had examined the correlation of age of marriage and motherhood and related aspects.
Eurasian otter raises hope for J&K stream (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Species in News)
The first photographic record of an elusive semi-aquatic carnivorous mammal has indicated that not all is lost for a Jammu and Kashmir stream.
A trio of scientists from the University of Jammu’s Institute of Mountain Environment (IME) at Bhaderwah camera-trapped three Eurasian otters – two adults and one sub-adult – in the Neeru stream of the Chenab catchment.
Apart from putting an end to doubts about the animal’s presence in the upper Chenab catchment, their findings have confirmed that some stretches of the Neeru remain unpolluted. The Neeru is a tributary of the Chenab River.
These stretches are away from human habitations and comprise stony beds and narrow valleys that are virtually unsuitable for sand and gravel mining, providing some hope for the otter’s survival.
Since the Eurasian otter — classified as ‘near threatened’ on the IUCN Red List — is regarded as a flagship species and indicator of high-quality aquatic habitats, its presence is encouraging for the health of the Neeru stream.
Dinesh Singh and Anil Thakar are the other scientists behind the study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Threatened Taxa.
The study area is drained by the Neeru, a 30-km perennial stream that originates in the Kailash Lake at 3,900 metres above mean sea level and drains into the Chenab at Pul-Doda.
Fed by 13 major tributaries, the stream flows through several small villages, semi-urban and urbanised areas, with Bhaderwah being the largest settlement.
Questionnaire surveys conducted in 2016-17 revealed that the animal – locally called huder or hud – once inhabited the entire length of the Neeru and its tributaries.
Unable to establish a direct sighting, the scientists followed the faeces of the animal and set up five infrared cameras. Three Eurasian otters were captured on the cameras over five days in October 2020.
Business
States identified for PM textile scheme to be named soon’ (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Ministry of Textiles will shortly name the States identified for implementation of the Prime Minister MITRA (Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel) Parks scheme, Union Minister of Textiles Piyush Goyal said.
Inaugurating a three-day Global Textile Conclave, the Minister said the States are being identified through the challenge route and the PM MITRA parks will provide the best ecosystem for the textile industry to be collectively present in one location, with plug-and-play infrastructure.
The parks would improve the competitiveness of the textile value chain and boost the five F (farm, fibre, factory, fashion, foreign) vision of the PM.
Listing the schemes implemented by the Ministry for the textile industry, he said recently an additional ₹500 crore was allocated for the Scheme for Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies on Export of Garments and Made-ups (RoSCTL) from the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) Scheme.
The vision for 2030 is to achieve an economic value of $250 billion in production and $100 billion in export of textiles, apparel, and related products. This can be achieved though the sector faced a small setback in the current year.