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Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav unveiled a statue of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder and Dalit leader Kanshi Ram at Manyavar Kanshi Ram Mahavidyalaya in Rae Bareli.
Speaking at the much-hyped function organised by party general secretary and prominent non-Yadav OBC (Other Backward Classes) face Swami Prasad Maurya, Mr. Yadav reached out to the Dalit community and said the path shown by socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia is the same as that envisioned by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram for the upliftment of the oppressed sections.
Appearing to counter allegations levelled by Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati, who had said the SP is “attempting to manipulate” the Dalit community, Mr. Yadav said, “We aim at binding the Bahujan society and are not trying to create division.”
On the friendship between Kanshi Ram and his father and SP founder Mulayam Singh, he said both the leaders “together pioneered a new kind of politics in the country”.
Mulayam helped Kanshi Ramji reach Parliament by supporting him from Etawah in the Lok Sabha election. Today in the same way our society needs to be united.
Reiterating his demand for a caste-based census, the former U.P. CM said development of each and every section of society is possible only when there is a caste census.
Without caste census, social justice and development of all is not possible. Our fight for the rights of oppressed and marginalised classes has been going on for a long time.
While attacking the BJP for “being anti-Dalit and anti-OBC”, Mr. Yadav cautioned the voters against those who indirectly help and support the saffron party, hinting at the BSP.
The BJP fights elections even with the support of others. Therefore, you have to be careful. We also have to be careful with those who help the BJP indirectly.
During the function, slogans from 1993, when the SP and BSP fought the election together against the BJP after the Babri Masjid demolition, figured in the speeches of some SP leaders.
The event is a major signalling by the SP to the Dalit community in view of the changing electoral realities in the State and amid the gradual erosion in the base of the Dalit-centric BSP.
Editorial
Time to put a price on carbon emissions (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In the absence of a price for the use of natural resources such as air and forests, environmental destruction has been part of every country’s recipe for boosting GDP growth.
But the consequence of this approach has been the relentless emission of carbon, causing runaway climate change. It is time, starting with the biggest economies of the G-20, to agree on valuing nature, including by pricing carbon effluents.
India can take the lead, as president of the G-20 this year, in carbon pricing, which will open unexpected avenues of decarbonisation.
Three ways of pricing carbon are: the establishment of a carbon tax domestically, as in Korea and Singapore; the use of an emissions trading system (ETS), as in the European Union (EU) and China; and the application of an import tariff on the carbon content, as the EU is proposing.
Some 46 countries price carbon, although covering only 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and at an average price of only $6 a ton of carbon, a fraction of the estimated harm from the pollution.
The International Monetary Fund has proposed price floors of $75, $50, and $25 a ton of carbon for the United States, China, and India, respectively. It believes this could help achieve a 23% reduction in global emissions by 2030.
The economy-wide benefits of carbon pricing in terms of damages avoided (plus revenue generation) generally outweighed the cost it imposed on individual industries in the EU, British Columbia, Canada, and Sweden.
A key dynamic is that carbon pricing, by signalling a price for cleaner air, makes investment in renewable energy such as solar and wind, which has huge prospects in India, more attractive.
Among the three ways of pricing, India could find a carbon tax appealing as it can directly discourage fossil fuels, while raising revenues which can be invested in cleaner sources of energy or used to protect vulnerable consumers.
It could replace the more inefficient scheme of petroleum taxes which are not directly aimed at emissions. By the way, Saudi Arabia and Russia are at the low end of gasoline prices (including taxes and subsidies), China and India in the mid-range, and Germany and France at the high end.
Text & Context
On defamation law: A blow against freedom of speech and expression (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
At the dawn of the 17th century, Englishmen were in the habit of challenging each other to violent duels in order to avenge personal insults. Public disorder was frequent and the authorities decided to step in.
To obviate the need for duels, they began to prosecute defamation as a criminal offence. So was born the notorious “criminal libel”.
Truth was no defence since a true defamatory statement was as likely to lead to a breach of peace as a false one. There was even a saying, “the greater the truth, the greater the libel.”
Two hundred and fifty years later, in 1860, the British imported their idea of criminal libel into the newly-minted Indian Penal Code (IPC). Section 499 of the IPC criminalised intentionally defamatory statements. True statements were not exempted, unless they also happened to be made for the “public good”.
On Friday, however, none of this seemed to matter to the Indian Supreme Court. Dismissing a petition filed by Subramaniam Swamy challenging the constitutionality of Section 499 of the IPC (Dr.
Swamy was later joined by a whole host of figures across the political spectrum, including Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal), the court kept the 1860 provision, with its 17th century roots, entirely intact.
In order to keep such an onerous offence on the statute books, the court had to construct novel arguments which will have serious and unfortunate implications for the freedom of speech and expression in the coming years.
First, it held that the right to “reputation” was protected under Article 21 of the Constitution which guarantees “life and personal liberty”. Now, Article 21 only protects the individual’s life and liberty against interference by the state.
Notwithstanding this minor textual hurdle, the Supreme Court declared that the right to free speech under Article 19(1)(a) had to be “balanced” against the right to “reputation” under Article 21.
The court never explained how this balancing exercise was to be carried out, but simply asserted that since reputation could not be “crucified” at the altar of free speech, criminal defamation was constitutional.
News
Only govt. can take call on plea on disqualified lawmakers, EC tells SC (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Election Commission in the Supreme Court has chosen to maintain a distance on the question whether a disqualified lawmaker should be banned from contesting elections for five years.
The commission said it would be “appropriate” to have the Union government deal with the issue. The commission filed a five-page affidavit in the top court in response to a plea by Congress leader Jaya Thakur.
The petitioner contended that an MP or an MLA who has either been disqualified from the House under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) or under Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution should be barred from contesting elections for five years.
Article 191(1)(e) gives the various grounds of disqualification “for being chosen as, and for being a member of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council of a State”.
They include holding an office of profit, being of unsound mind or undischarged solvent or being a non-citizen or voluntarily acquiring the citizenship of a foreign state or being under any acknowledgement of allegiance or adherence to a foreign state.
The final ground of disqualification, and the one highlighted by Ms. Thakur in her petition, is if an MLA or an MLC is “disqualified by or under any law made by Parliament”.
“The issue involved in this matter pertains to the interpretation of Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution. It relates to matters that do not have a nexus with the conduct of elections in terms of the remit of the Commission under Article 324.
Therefore, respondent no. 1 (Union government) is the appropriate party for the adjudication of the prayers made in the petition,” the commission said in the affidavit.
The EC is vested with the authority of superintendence, direction, and control of elections for the conduct of elections to Parliament, State legislatures and the offices of the President and the Vice-President.
Ms. Thakur has highlighted instances in the past when lawmakers resign from legislature parties which brought them to the House, leading to a fall of the government.
Just 9.3% of loans under PM SVANidhi given to vendors from minority communities’ (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
A total of 42.7 lakh loans amounting to ₹5,152.37 crore has been disbursed to street vendors under the PM SVANidhi scheme, out of which only 3.98 lakh, or 9.3%, were to hawkers from the minority communities, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs told the Rajya Sabha.
The PM SVANidhi is a micro-credit scheme which was launched in 2020 to provide handholding support to street vendors to tide over the pandemic-induced economic stress. It facilitates collateral-free loans of ₹10,000, with subsequent loans of ₹20,000 and ₹50,000 with 7% interest subsidy.
The data shared by the Ministry in reply to a question by John Brittas, MP, on Monday shows that there was a decline in the share of loans to street vendors of minority communities with 10.23% in 2020-21, 9.25% in 2021-22 and an all-time low of 7.76% in 2022-23.
In 2020-21, 2,10,457 loans were disbursed to minorities, while it was 98,973 loans in 2021-22 and 88,609 in 2022-23.
The data pertaining to the loans given under PM SVANidhi draws a bleak picture for minority street vendors. Albeit the minorities constitute around 20% of the total population of the country, their representation amongst street vendors is reported to be manifold owing to myriad socio-economic reasons.
According to the data, the State-wise disbursal of loans seemed to be aligned with its population, with Uttar Pradesh disbursing the maximum number of loans at 11,22,397, while Sikkim gave out one loan. Uttar Pradesh also gave the largest number of loans — 95,032 — to hawkers from minority communities.
India-U.S. air exercise to begin next week, Japan to be an observer (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Continuing the military-to-military engagement, the Air Forces of India and the U.S. are set to conduct the Cope India exercise from April 10 to 21 at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal, with Japan as an observer. The exercise will see intense air manoeuvres aimed at improving interoperability.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is set to field its frontline fighters SU-30MKI, Rafale and the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft along with force multipliers, while the U.S. Air Force is expected to bring in F-15 fighter jets.
The Japanese Air Self Defence Force (JASDF) participated in Cope India as an observer for the first time in December 2018 based on the Agreement of Defence Ministerial Meeting on August 20, 2018.
As was reported, the U.S. proposed a trilateral air exercise between the three countries and so Japan was included as an observer with the intention to elevate it into trilateral level in phases.
The India-U.S. bilateral Malabar naval exercise became trilateral with the addition of Japan in 2015 and further brought in all the Quad partners together with the inclusion of Australia in 2020. In January this year, India and Japan held the maiden air exercise Veer Guardian hosted by the JASDF.
Amid disruptions, Rajya Sabha passes Competition Bill (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Government Policies and Interventions)
Both Houses of Parliament witnessed disruptions on Monday, the first day of the last week of the Budget Session, over the Adani stock controversy and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s speech abroad criticising the political atmosphere in the country.
The Rajya Sabha passed the Competition (Amendment) Bill without any debate. The Lok Sabha had passed the Bill, which regulates mergers and acquisitions, in a similar manner last week.
The Upper House was adjourned till 2 p.m. within three minutes of convening for the day amid persistent protest from the Opposition demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Adani-Hindenburg episode.
He then invited Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to move a motion to pass the Competition (Amendment) Bill.
When proceedings in the Lok Sabha started at 11 a.m., the House did not witness any disruptions as Speaker Om Birla read out obituary references for sitting member from Pune constituency and BJP leader Girish Bapat and former Independent member Innocent, who represented the Chalakudy constituency in Kerala.
The Opposition protests resumed in the afternoon session, and the House was adjourned for the day after laying of papers.