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The Kerala High Court has directed the State government to issue within three months an order regulating sex selective surgeries on intersex infants and children.
Justice V.G. Arun also ordered that until the regulation was put in place, sex selective surgery shall be permitted only based on the opinion of a State-level multidisciplinary committee that the surgery was essential to save the life of such child/infant.
The court passed the directives recently while disposing of a writ petition filed by the parents of a child born with ambiguous genitalia seeking permission of the court to conduct a genital reconstructive surgery on the child.
The court directed the government to constitute a State-level multidisciplinary committee consisting of a paediatrician/ paediatric endocrinologist, paediatric surgeon and child psychiatrist/ child psychologist to decide whether the child was facing any life threatening situation by reason of the ambiguous genitalia. If so, permission could be granted for carrying out the surgery.
The court observed that grant of permission for conducting genital reconstructive surgery would impinge the rights guaranteed under the Constitution and conduct of the surgery without consent would violate the child’s dignity and privacy.
Granting such permission may also result in severe emotional and psychological issues if, on attaining adolescence, the child developed orientation towards the gender, other than the one to which the child was converted through surgical intervention.
Editorial
The grammar of commerce in a new age of geopolitics (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
That India is a favoured trading partner, with potential for a large market, has been quite evident, at least since March 2018 when 23 advanced and developing countries agreed to have currency swap arrangements with India, extending credits in settling transactions.
There has been an unexpected turn in the use of the Indian rupee for international transactions after the Ukraine-Russia war began in early 2022, in turn leading to sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on Russia, by directly targeting the assets of Russian financial institutions.
The issue became serious for Russia (one of the largest suppliers of India’s 212.2 million tons of crude oil imports during 2022) and for India ( a large market for Russian exports).
An alternative route was chosen to settle payments between India and Russia by using the Indian rupee in transactions related to trade between the two countries.
When it comes to the modalities, payments from either India or Russia now go to the Rupee Vostro accounts, opened in Russian banks by the authorised dealer banks in India, which take care of settling payments between the two countries.
Indian importers, going by the terms in this arrangement, pay rupees to the Rupee Vostro account through authorised Indian banks against invoices presented by the Russian supplier.
The arrangement is supposed to provide for payments to Russians — for items India has been importing on a regular basis such as mineral fuels, crude oil and even the air defence system.
Exports from India can also be paid in rupees from the same Vostro account maintained with the corresponding bank in Russia.
Opinion
Learning from the CHIPS Act of the U.S. (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The United States’ Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS Act) completes one year as a law today (August 9).
The Act authorises $52.7 billion over five years to boost American competitiveness, innovation and national security in semiconductors.
While the jury is still out on the long-term effectiveness of the Act, what is important from an Indian perspective is to observe and learn from its implementation.
As industrial policy has become a default policy of choice for nation-states, the Act provides a clear window into the capabilities and structures needed to execute such policies.
While it may neither be possible nor desirable to replicate specific provisions, we outline four lessons to help India execute its semiconductor strategy better.
The Act involves cooperation and coordination between several arms of the government. Four separate funds have been created for the execution of the Act.
The Department of Commerce is the lead agency administering the $50 billion CHIPS for America Fund for accelerating semiconductor manufacturing and research.
But there are also allocations for the Department of Defense ($2 billion) for defence-unique technologies, the Department of State ($0.5 billion) to coordinate with foreign partners on semiconductor supply chain security, and the National Science Foundation ($0.2 billion) to promote the growth of the semiconductor workforce. This structure highlights the priority accorded to semiconductors.
On the other hand, India’s semiconductor industrial policy is being managed mainly by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
The schemes for manufacturing, assembly, displays and compound semiconductors have been assigned to an independent division called India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) within a non-profit company set up by MeitY.
Explainer
What is Fitch’s downgrade of U.S. about? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
On August 1, rating agency Fitch downgraded the United States of America’s (U.S.A.) rating to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’ — a rating that it had been holding at the agency since 1994.
This was the first major downgrade for the country since Standard & Poor’s (S&P) actions in 2011. Fitch argued the downgrade cumulatively reflected the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, “high and growing” general government debt burden and the “erosion of governance” in comparison to similarly rated peers over the last two decades.
Before moving to the downgrade, it is pertinent to note that rating agencies are institutions that assess the creditworthiness or financial capability of a region, country, its institutions or individual organisations.
They assess its ability to meet future payment obligations — particularly important for those making investment decisions.
Fitch rates credit quality from ‘AAA’ (its highest rating) to ‘D’ (lowest rating). ‘AAA’ is assigned to entities with “exceptionally strong capacity for payment of financial commitments”.
The downgrade in discussion, that is ‘AA’, denotes “very low default risk”, in other words, “very strong capacity for payment of financial commitments”. Important to note, both reflect strong profiles — varying only on a comparative basis.
Fitch held that there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters.
This is despite the bipartisan agreement reached in June for suspending the debt limit until January 2025. The agency observed that the “repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”
The second of the observations relates to lacking a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and having a complex budgeting process.
The agency noted that these, combined with several economic shocks, tax cuts and new spending initiatives has led to successive increases in debt over the last decade.
What is the Jan Vishwas Bill, 2023 proposed by Centre? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2023 was passed in Parliament recently. Introduced by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the Bill aims at giving further boost to ease of living and ease of doing business.
It proposes to amend 183 provisions to be decriminalised in 42 Central Acts administered by 19 Ministries/Departments.
The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2022 amends 42 laws, across multiple sectors, including agriculture, environment, and media and publication and health.
The Bill converts several fines to penalties, meaning that court prosecution is not necessary to administer punishments. It also removes imprisonment as a punishment for many offences.
Covered under the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2023 are changes in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the Pharmacy Act, 1948.
This has evoked heated debate about its pros and cons among health care activists, experts in the field of pharmacy and patient-welfare groups.
Among these, the changes proposed to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 have been the most contentious. The Act regulates the import, manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs and cosmetics in the country.
Currently, the Act defines four categories of offences— adulterated drugs, spurious drugs, mislabelled drugs, and Not of Standard Quality drugs (NSQs) — and lays out degrees of punishment (a combination of prison time and fine) based on the degree of offence.
The amendments have brought in sharp criticism from health activists. Prashant Reddy, lawyer and co-author of The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India, said that the Bill is detrimental to public health on two counts.
First, it allows manufacturers of Not of Standard Quality Drugs (NSQ) drugs to escape significant penalties despite the fact that these drugs can have an adverse effect on the patient.
News
Should Constitution be amended to make Article 370 permanent, asks CJI (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said that as a constitutional democracy, India seeks its public opinions through established institutions such as Parliament and not through Brexit-type referendums.
The Chief Justice, heading a Constitution Bench examining the challenge to the dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution annulling the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, was reacting to a submission by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners.
Mr. Sibal was arguing that Parliament and the Union government had diluted Article 370 “unilaterally”, without making an effort to understand the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
“When you want to sever such a special relationship with Jammu and Kashmir, you had to ultimately seek the opinion of the people. The will of the people was central to this decision.
It should have been a political decision… What happened in Brexit? There was no constitutional provision for a referendum. Yet, they asked for public opinion,” Mr. Sibal submitted.
In a constitutional democracy, seeking the opinions of the people should be through established institutions. Any recourse to public opinion has to be sought through the established institutions.
You cannot envisage a Brexit-type referendum… That was a political decision taken by the then government in the U.K... But within a Constitution like ours, there is no question of a referendum,” the Chief Justice observed.
Mr. Sibal argued that the Union government had diluted Article 370 through a series of “executive acts”, starting with the dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly and the State government, the subsequent imposition of President’s Rule in the erstwhile State and the tweaking of the proviso to Article 370(3) to side-step the pre-condition of getting the recommendation of the now-defunct Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly before declaring Article 370 inoperative.
Trial done in India shows nutrition support prevents TB, related deaths (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
A large trial undertaken in India has underscored the role of nutritional supplementation in sharply cutting down tuberculosis (TB) disease rate in the household contacts of an index patient, and mortality reduction in people diagnosed with active pulmonary TB.
In the randomised controlled trial involving household contacts of patients with pulmonary TB, nutritional support led to 39-48% reduction in TB disease in the intervention group compared with the control arm.
In the study that lasted for six months, 122 people in the control group developed TB whereas the intervention arm had only 96 TB cases.
The 39% reduction in TB disease included all forms of TB (pulmonary and extra-pulmonary), while the 48% reduction was in microbiologically confirmed pulmonary TB. The intervention arm had 5,621 household contacts, and the control group had 4,724 family members.
Each adult family member in the intervention arm received monthly nutritional support for six months — 5 kg of rice, 1.5 kg of split pigeon peas (tur dal), and a micronutrient pill; each child below 10 years received 50% of the adult nutrition support. Those in the control arm did not get any nutritional supplementation and were on a usual diet.
The trial also provided nutritional supplementation to all 2,800 people with active pulmonary TB undergoing treatment.
Treatment was successful in nearly 94% (2,623) of TB patients.
There were only about 4% (108) deaths during the six-month follow-up. The trial was conducted on 2,800 people with pulmonary TB (1,979 men and 821 women).
Over 80% of the participants had a BMI less than 18 and nearly 49% had a BMI less than 16 (severely underweight).
Why no disaggregated data on tribal populations, asks House panel (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
A parliamentary committee on the empowerment of women tabled a report in the House, which pulled up the Union government for not having disaggregated data on the health conditions of tribal populations in the country and called for extensive data collection in this regard.
The panel also called for a review in the Allocation of Business Rules so that the Tribal Affairs Ministry can be empowered to appropriately plan resources for tribal welfare in sectors such as health, education, nutrition, skill development and livelihood.
The committee, headed by BJP MP Heena Gavit, painted a grim picture of the health conditions of tribal women in the country with whatever data was made available to it by the government from various sources.
In the report on health facilities for tribal women, the committee noted how several diseases such as sickle cell anaemia and leprosy continued to be more prevalent in tribal populations.
In a written note to the committee, the Health Ministry stated that genetic conditions such as sickle cell disease and G-6 PD deficiency were rising in tribal areas and that hypertension prevalence was also high in these areas, in addition to a higher prevalence of communicable diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis and cholera, compared with other social groups.
More than half of all tribal women in the reproductive age group are anaemic, the panel noted. It added that sickle cell disease testing of around 1.5 crore tribal people in targeted districts had shown 10.5 lakh people to be carriers, with around 50,000 diagnosed with the ailment.
Business
‘Fiscal firepower necessary to handle exogenous shocks’ (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India needs to retain “fiscal firepower” to effectively manage exogenous shocks as there has been no favourable change in global headwinds and associated risks since the presentation of the Union Budget in February.
The ministry had at the time cited “unprecedented global uncertainties that may adversely affect medium-term projections” to justify not placing fiscal projections for 2024-25 and 2025-26 in Parliament.
On Tuesday, the ministry conveyed its inability to release the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act.
The MTEF, it said, required assumptions to be made about the growth rate of the economy and revenue receipts to enable “meaningful expenditure projections and rolling targets” for the next two years.
Further, effective management of exogenous shocks and global uncertainties necessitates additional flexibility... in terms of expenditure management and fiscal consolidation.