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The Supreme Court described the constitutional amendment reserving one-third of the seats in Parliament, State legislatures, and the Delhi Legislative Assembly for women as a “very good step” towards attaining gender parity in politics, but voiced doubts about stepping in to ensure the implementation of the quota law before the general election in 2024.
It will be very difficult for us to do that. It will amount to virtually legislating,” Justice Sanjiv Khanna, heading a Division Bench. However, the court listed the case on November 22 along with a similar petition.
The petition filed by Jaya Thakur, represented by senior advocate Vikas Singh and advocate Varinder Kumar Sharma, questioned a clause in the law which said the reservation should be implemented only after the next census followed by a delimitation exercise.
Editorial
The IITs are overcommitted, in crisis (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are globally recognised as the crown jewels in India’s higher education system. Indeed, they are often the only Indian higher education institutions known internationally at all.
They have produced leaders in high tech and related fields in India and abroad. The IITs may be the most difficult higher education institutions to gain entry in the world — with more than a million students appearing for the entrance examination each year and competing for 17,385 places in the 23 IITs.
Yet, the IIT system is in serious trouble at the same time that some of them are building campuses abroad as part of India’s soft power efforts. It is worth taking a careful look at current realities to understand a looming crisis.
A branch campus of IIT-Madras has just opened in Zanzibar and IIT Delhi will be launching programmes from its Abu Dhabi campus in 2024.
The admission standards are not like those at home. Admission is based on the IIT Madras Zanzibar Selection Test (IITMZST) 2023 screening test followed by an interview.
Some of the screening test centres offered to potential applicants were located not only in Tanzania but also in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates (which has a strong presence of the Indian diaspora).
Action and authority (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
That two States have approached the Supreme Court of India against the conduct of their Governors once again flags the problem of political appointees in Raj Bhavan using their authority to delay the implementation of decisions by elected regimes, if not undermine them.
Tamil Nadu and Kerala have questioned the delay in the granting assent to Bills passed by the legislature. Tamil Nadu is also aggrieved that proposals related to grant of remission to some convicts, sanction for prosecution of some former Ministers and appointments to the State Public Service Commissions have not been acted upon. Governors need not rubber stamp any decision, but one can question the practice of Governors, especially in States not governed by the ruling party at the Centre, blocking decisions and Bills.
For instance, some Governors appear to be hostile to the very idea of amendments to university laws if they seek to leave out Chancellors, invariably the Governors themselves, from the process of appointing vice-chancellors, or establishing new universities in which Governors are not chancellors.
The idea of having Governors as ex-officio vice-chancellor of most universities is only a practice and is actualised through their founding statutes.
However, Governors seem to be labouring under the misconception that they have a right to be chancellors and tend to delay assent to any Bill that clips or removes their power.
It is time to have a national prohibition on Governors being burdened with the role of chancellor of any university, as recommended by the Justice M.M. Punchhi Commission on Centre-State relations.
News
PM, UAE President discuss resolution of West Asia crisis (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Amid the Israel-Hamas war, Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the West Asia situation with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates.
The phone call took place days after India abstained on a Jordanian resolution at the United Nations General Assembly seeking ceasefire.
The resolution was supported by the UAE. India has been in contact with the UAE over the violence which began on October 7, leading to the death of thousands of civilians. UAE has condemned Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza.
“Had a good conversation with my brother Mohammed Bin Zayed, President of UAE, on the West Asia situation. We share deep concerns at the terrorism, deteriorating security situation and loss of civilian lives.
We agree on the need for early resolution of the security and humanitarian situation and that a durable regional peace, security and stability is in everyone’s interest,” Mr. Modi said.
Seven years on, India set to open new consulate in Seattle (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Seven years after the Indian government first announced plans to open a consulate in Seattle, home to many big technology companies, the Ministry of External Affairs has appointed its first Consul-General in the U.S. city. This will be the sixth consulate in the U.S.
The envoy, Joint Secretary Prakash Gupta, is the Ministry’s point person for all multilateral coordination on United Nations issues. He had earlier served in India’s Permanent Mission at the UN.
Sources said the announcement about the consulate opening is expected to be made during the “2+2” talks on November 10 when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defence Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin will visit Delhi.
Mr. Gupta, who will head a two-man diplomatic mission with 16 non-diplomatic and local staff, is expected to travel to Seattle in mid-November to operationalise the consulate by the end of the month.
Apart from the Indian Embassy in Washington, India maintains consulates in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York, and San Francisco.
While the decision to open the mission was first announced in the 2016 India-U.S. joint statement after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then U.S. President Barack Obama, the proposal, which was to have accompanied a reciprocal U.S. plan to open new consulates in India, did not make much progress.
The U.S. is now expected to open two new consulates as well. Currently, it maintains consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. During his visit to Washington D.C. in June this year, Mr. Modi had repeated the proposal.
World
‘We witness the most disruptive force in history; AI to replace all jobs,’ Elon Musk tells PM Sunak (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The time will come when artificial intelligence (AI), replaces all jobs, according to SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
“I think we are seeing the most disruptive force in history here,” Mr. Musk, who owns social media platform X, told U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Mr. Sunak was in a telecast conversation with Mr. Musk at the end of a two-day summit on AI safety held by the British government in Bletchley Park.
There will come a point where no job is needed,” he said, adding that it was hard to tell when that point would be reached. and that human beings will be challenged to find meaning in their lives.
Mr. Musk said that, on balance, “most likely” AI would be a force for good, but there was a chance of things going bad.
At another point in their interview, Mr. Musk said that in the future there would not be universal basic income but universal high income, although he did not explain the mechanism through which this would be achieved.