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Justice K.M. Joseph, on a Division Bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, said that it was “more than obvious” that the men released early from life imprisonment in the case of gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots were raising a maze of procedural objections in successive court hearings to avoid his Bench.
The oral remark came after the courtroom rang with submissions made by the lawyers for the 11 released convicts, who claimed that they were not served notice of the case.
They sought an adjournment by at least two weeks to file their counter-affidavits to Ms. Bano’s petition challenging the decision of the State of Gujarat, endorsed by the Centre, to remit their life sentences.
These people are already out of jail. If there is merit in your case, you will succeed. If there is no merit, you will not succeed… The matter would have taken a different turn if it had come to my court earlier…” Justice Joseph said. The convicts were released on August 15, 2022.
Ms. Gupta said the petition was filed in November 2022. It came up for hearing before a Bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela Trivedi on December 13. Justice Trivedi had recused himself.
Editorial
The LAC crisis and the danger of losing without fighting (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
It was in the first week of May 2020 that news broke of ingress by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in multiple areas across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.
Three years later, some of those areas have witnessed disengagement — pulling troops apart by a few miles of buffer zones — while two of them, Depsang and Demchok, remain unresolved. Indian soldiers cannot touch 26 of the 65 patrolling points in Ladakh.
Neither diplomatic meetings nor talks between corps commanders have elicited any progress since September last year; regular meetings between Indian and Chinese Ministers, Foreign and Defence, have not yielded results either.
Beijing has ignored Delhi’s talking points, even after they have been watered down so much that India no longer demands a return to the status quo of April 2020. Verbose non sequiturs in Indian statements can hardly cover up the government’s failure in handling the current China crisis.
During the 2013 Depsang crisis, the United Progressive Alliance was in power, the current External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was India’s Ambassador to Beijing and the current Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, Lt. Gen. K.T. Parnaik (retired) was the Northern Army Commander.
The PLA had then blocked Indian patrols at Bottleneck or Y-Junction, the same place where it has now blocked them in Depsang since 2020. Within three weeks, the PLA had been forced to lift the block after the Indian Army, as per Lt. Gen. Parnaik, launched a quid pro quo operation on the Chinese side in Chumar. Negotiations followed, including in Beijing, and the status quo as it existed before PLA’s block was restored.
The criticism of the government over those three weeks was deafening. Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, argued that the problem was not on the border but in Delhi. He also asked why our soldiers were vacating the area after disengagement if they were on Indian territory.
Most media reports were strident in criticising the government then, but the same journalists have been silent when the very same spot has been blocked by the PLA for over three years.
Their constant labelling of Depsang as a legacy issue disconnected with the current crisis so offended former Ladakh Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. Rakesh Sharma (retd.) that he was compelled to pen a strong rejoinder. However, misleading claims about Depsang continue to be regurgitated.
In ‘India as Eden’ offer, the apple of diluted labour laws (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
In addition to being the starting point of the possible onset of another scorching summer, the month of April also witnessed two important happenings that are tied to the country’s avowed economic-industrial transformation, demanding our attention.
The first was the passage of a piece of legislation in the Tamil Nadu Assembly that amended the Factory Act of 1948, to extend the number of working hours in a day, from eight hours to 12 hours.
A similar piece of legislation was passed in the Karnataka Assembly, a few months ago. However, in his address during May Day celebrations in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin, announced the withdrawal of the legislation.
This announcement comes on the back of the temporary hold on further action on the Bill by the Tamil Nadu government, after strong opposition; this includes the State government’s alliance partners and trade unions.
The eight-hour working day, adopted by the International Labour Organization in 1919, is a hard won right by workers and trade unions, who have had to struggle over the years to keep capricious policy changes at bay.
While appreciating the action initiated by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, the passage, in the first place, of these pieces of legislation (which has justifiably led to anger and outcry among trade unions and labour support groups) clearly signals the intent of governments to house investments by transnational corporations (through their supply chains), by ramping up capacities and provisioning incentives. As a matter of fact, these legislative changes could trace their legacy to the four labour codes passed by the central government in 2019-20, which, in turn, have weakened the labour protection architecture, lowered thresholds and squeezed collective bargaining, thereby effectively curtailing their actual operability.
Opinion
Outlawing India’s tech tariffs (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
On the complaints brought by the European Union (EU), Japan, and Taiwan, three World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panels have found India’s tariffs on certain information and communication technology (ICT) products such as mobile phones inconsistent with India’s WTO obligations.
Specifically, the panels concluded that India has violated Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) because India’s tariffs breach its Goods Schedule.
Since one of the central objectives of the WTO is to boost transparency and predictability in the multilateral trading order, WTO member countries are under a legal obligation not to impose tariff rates in excess of their ‘bound’ or maximum tariff rates committed in their Goods Schedule.
The Goods Schedules are based on the World Customs Organization’s classification system, which catalogues traded products with specific names and numbers.
This is also known as the Harmonized System of Nomenclature (HSN). Due to the continuous emergence of new products owing to technological innovations, the HSN system is regularly updated to reflect new products, also known as ‘transposition’.
To justify higher tariff rates, India argued that its binding tariff commitments on ICT products are contained in the WTO Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA Agreement), which India joined in 1997.
The ITA Agreement, adopted in 1996, is an arrangement through which select WTO member countries agree to eliminate duties on IT products.
However, the commitments under the ITA become binding on a country under Articles II.1(a) and (b) of GATT only if they are incorporated in the Goods Schedule.
Accordingly, the panels held that India’s Goods Schedule, not the ITA, is the source of India’s legal obligations on tariffs, including on products covered by the ITA.
Text & Context
De-dollarisation: the race to attain the status of global reserve currency (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
De-dollarisation refers to the replacement of the U.S. dollar by other currencies as the global reserve currency.
A reserve currency refers to any currency that is widely used in cross-border transactions and is commonly held as reserves by central banks.
Countries have tried to dethrone the dollar as the global reserve currency for many decades now for various reasons. But of late, attempts to de-dollarise have picked up pace in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
The U.S. imposed several sanctions that restricted the use of the U.S. dollar to purchase oil and other goods from Russia, and this has been seen by many countries as an attempt to weaponise the dollar. Since international transactions carried out in the U.S. dollar are cleared by American banks, this gives the U.S. government significant power to oversee and control these transactions.
Currently, the Chinese yuan is seen as the primary alternative to the U.S. dollar owing to China’s rising economic power.
Other currencies such as the British pound and the French franc have served as international reserve currencies in the past. It should be noted that it is the currencies of economic superpowers that have usually ended up being used as the global reserve currency.
As the economic clout of these countries waned, their currencies faced a similar downfall. This was the case, for example, with the British pound which was gradually replaced by the U.S. dollar as Britain lost its status as a global economic superpower in the first half of the 20th century.
News
Centre plans panel to find alternative to death by hanging (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The government apprised the Supreme Court that it is considering the formation of a committee to examine the need for a painless and more dignified alternative to death by hanging.
Appearing before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Attorney General R. Venkataramani sought time till July to report back to the Supreme Court.
In March, the court had asked the government to provide data which may give a clue to a more acceptable method of executing prisoners other than death by hanging.
The Chief Justice had in that hearing suggested to the government the formation of a committee with experts from the national law universities, professors of law, doctors and scientific persons.
The court had indicated to the Centre that it may even direct an alternative method of executing capital punishments if it was proved that there was a more “humane” method of execution which would render death by hanging unconstitutional.
“If you want us to relook death by hanging, we need better data… We want to know the impact of the sentence of death by hanging, the pain caused, the period of actual death and the availability of resources for hanging a person,” Chief Justice Chandrachud had observed.
The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Rishi Malhotra challenging the constitutionality of death by hanging as a mode of execution. Section 354 (5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure mandates that a person sentenced to death shall “be hanged by the neck till he is dead”.
Rajnath Singh hands over two naval vessels to the Maldivian defence forces (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Continuing India’s capacity building assistance in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, on the second day of his three-day visit, handed over a Fast Patrol Vessel (FPV) and a Landing Craft Assault ship to the Maldives National Defence Forces (MNDF).
In Sri Lanka, Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari donated AN-32 transport aircraft propellers to Commander Sri Lanka Air Force at Katunayake Air Base.
“India has emerged as a leading defence exporter in recent years. A defence manufacturing ecosystem has been created which has the advantage of abundant technical manpower.
We produce world-class equipment to meet not only our own needs, but also for exports,” Mr. Singh said at the formal handover ceremony.
In recent years, India has significantly scaled up assistance towards capacity building and capability enhancement for Indian Ocean littoral states and countries in the IOR.
Mr. Singh called for collaborative efforts to deal with common challenges faced by IOR, including climate change and sustainable exploitation of maritime resources.
Karnataka ranked the most ‘innovative’ State in manufacturing (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A survey on the degree of innovation among manufacturing firms found that Karnataka, overall, is the most “innovative” State, followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu (DNH&DD), Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.
Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu had the highest share of innovative firms at 46.18%, 39.1% and 31.9%, respectively, with Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand reporting the lowest share of such firms at 12.78%, 13.47% and 13.71%, respectively.
Nearly three-fourths of the 8,000-odd firms surveyed, most of them micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME), neither made any innovative product nor business process innovation during the survey period of financial years 2017-2020.
However, nearly 80% of the firms that did reported significant gains such as expanding markets and reducing production costs.
The most frequent “barriers to innovation” were the lack of internal funds, high innovation costs, and lack of financing from external sources. Gujarat and DNH&DD reported the highest frequencies of barriers to innovation.
The findings are part of the National Manufacturing Innovation Survey (NMIS) 2021-22, a joint study by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, to evaluate the innovation performance of manufacturing firms in the India.
World
Ranil renews vow to resolve Sri Lanka’s ethnic question (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday said he hoped to reach “a mutually agreeable solution” on the island nation’s long-pending ethnic problem by the end of the year, renewing an old promise.
My intention is to address the ethnic problem in the country while implementing the agreement with the International Monetary Fund. We are currently in discussions, and I hope to reach a mutually agreeable solution by the end of this year.
It is important for us to move forward while respecting and protecting the rights of all communities including the majority Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Burgher minorities without marginalising anyone. We are all committed to achieving this goal.
This is the second time that Mr. Wickremesinghe has made the pledge after his ascent to Presidency last year. He had promised to resolve the country’s persisting ethnic problem by February 4 this year, when Sri Lanka marked its 75th year of Independence, but failed to meet the deadline he set for himself.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main parliamentary grouping of MPs from the north and east, participated in the talks with the President, despite initial reservations stemming from past attempts.
The TNA also presented a set of five actionable points to the President, pertaining to land and police powers, and devolving more administrative powers to the provincial councils, and is awaiting action for months now.
Fourteen years after the end of a devastating civil war, Sri Lanka is still faced with the problem that drove the country into decades-long strife.
Apart from their historic struggle for self-determination, and their persisting demand for truth and justice for war-time civilian deaths and disappearances, Sri Lanka’s Tamil community continues to battle several challenges, including an escalating attack on their lands.