3 September 2024, The Hindu
Law doesn’t allow razing of homes of accused: SC
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GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- The Supreme Court on Monday (September 2, 2024) questioned the bulldozing of homes and private properties of persons accused of crimes or even their relatives by States as a possible act of public retribution, saying the law does not permit the destruction of the family shelters of even convicts.
- “How can anybody’s home be demolished because he is an accused in a case? The law does not permit that… Can it happen even if a person is a convict?” Justice B.R. Gavai, heading a Bench with Justice K.V. Viswanathan, asked.
Why women don’t come forward to report sexual misconduct
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GS 1: Role of women and women’s organization
- Before she decided to walk away from her PhD programme at one of the most reputed public-funded universities in Delhi, a 29-year-old research scholar wrote a note to her professors narrating for one last time the harrowing time she had under her supervisor and how her complaint of sexual harassment against him to the institute went unheard for weeks.
- She signed off the letter with the line: “Ironically, I was pursuing my PhD on women’s access to higher education in India.”
- As the publication of the Justice K. Hema Committee report on harassment and abuse in the Malayalam film industry reignited discussions about sexual harassment in films, the template and impact of such acts appear to bear similarities across professions ranging from media to academia to the corporate world.
‘Actors with political ambitions should first voice support for women in films’
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GS 1: Social empowerment
- Veteran actor Radikaa Sarathkumar, who, in the wake of the release of the K. Hema Committee report, recently came out with fresh allegations based on what she faced on the sets of a Malayalam film, spoke to the press on the raging issue of safety of women in the Tamil film industry.
- Stating again that she did not want to name and shame the malefactors, Radikaa said, “I’ve seen those who have committed mistakes and have paid heavily for it. My colleagues and I handled it correctly when it happened to us, and as strong women, we don’t want to sound helpless in front of the media.”
Dealings at a China-Africa forum that India must track
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GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests
- The ninth edition of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is to take place from September 4-6, 2024, in Beijing.
- The event comes at a time when African nations are facing multiple issues such as high inflation, currency depreciation, a heavy debt burden, unconstitutional military takeovers and geopolitical challenges such as the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars, and attacks by Houthi rebels on commercial shipping in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Moreover, a sense of ‘summit fatigue’ has seeped into the mindset of African leaders following multiple recent Africa+1 summits with Türkiye, Russia, South Korea, and the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit.
- Rather than having 54 leaders attend, following the Banjul format of 15 countries plus the African Union Commission (AUC) is more prudent.
The Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill is knotty
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GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- On August 1, 2024, the central government introduced the Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha.
- Brought in in the wake of climate-induced disasters, the Bill shows much evidence of a further centralisation of an already heavily-centralised Disaster Management Act, 2005.
- This Act, in its current form, already mandates the creation of many authorities and committees at the national, State and district levels.
- The proposed Bill further provides statutory status to pre-act organisations such as the National Crisis Management Committee and a High Level Committee, complicating the chain of action to be followed in case of disasters.
- A repercussion of this top-down approach is seen when there is a delayed response to disasters, antithetical to the intent and purpose of the Act.
- The Bill claims to strengthen the working of the National Disaster Management Authority and the State Disaster Management Authorities to prepare State and national level plans.
- It also establishes an ‘Urban Disaster Management Authority’ for State capitals and cities with municipal corporations.
- However, this intended decentralisation of functions without the necessary financial devolution creates more problems than it solves.
Enhancing oversight
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment
- The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, entrusted with overseeing the seven-year-old indirect tax regime, is slated to meet on September 9.
- This would be its second sitting in under three months, after a nine-month pause.
- The Council, whose parleys steered by the Union Finance Minister with States’ representatives are critical for resolving taxpayer challenges and setting broader policy direction, ought to meet regularly at such frequency.
- A key expectation from the upcoming meet revolves around the much-awaited review of GST’s complex, multiple-rate structure. In June, the Council resolved to take stock of the progress made on this front by a ministerial group (GoM) appointed in 2021, and deliberate on the path forward.
- However, going by State Ministers’ recent submissions to the GoM, progress is likely to be slow and arduous, with most members signalling an aversion to shake things up when revenues are healthy.
- Ideally, the Council should at least set a time line for concluding the group’s deliberations and nudge it to come up with a couple of alternatives for the revamped rate structure if consensus is difficult to attain.
Another escalation
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GS 1: Communalism, regionalism
- In a significant deterioration of an already fraught situation in Manipur, two persons were killed and at least nine were injured in a bomb attack using drones in villages in the Meitei-majority Imphal West district.
- The perpetrators are believed to be Kuki-Zo militants. Kuki-Zo groups and partisans have claimed that the attacks were in retaliation to an attempt by Meitei vigilante and insurgent groups to “ambush” Kuki-zo people in the area.
- While this claim remains unproven, the use of drones — a tactic employed by pro-democracy insurgents in Myanmar against the junta — points to a dangerous escalation of the ethnic conflict in the State.
- Coming in the wake of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s assertion that a peace resolution will be achieved in six months, the dastardly attacks could indicate that they are either a deliberate ploy to heighten tensions or just another reminder that ethnic hostilities remain entrenched.
- That insurgents could use sophisticated drones to attack civilians also suggests a glaring intelligence failure and the inability of the security forces to ensure that the militants are contained.
- The government has ordered police combing operations but this will not be enough.
- Unless there is a strong measure to disarm the various groups in the valley and the hills, the situation could exacerbate further.
Vinesh Phogat and feminism in Haryana
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GS 1: Role of women and women’s organization
- On August 15, the Indian Olympic Association expressed its disappointment after the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s appeal for a shared silver at the Paris Olympics.
- Phogat was disqualified after she was found to be 100g overweight on the morning of her gold medal bout.
- A day after her disqualification, Phogat announced her retirement on social media. She wrote, “...I don’t have any more strength now. Goodbye Wrestling, 2001-2024.”
- Last year, Phogat had been in the news worldwide for protesting with other wrestlers against the former president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, alleging that he sexually abused multiple women athletes for years.
- During their sit-in protests at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, the wrestlers were manhandled by the police.
On Germany’s electoral architecture
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GS 2: Comparison of the Indian constitutional scheme with that of other countries
- On July 30, Germany’s federal constitutional court upheld the government’s move to downsize the lower house of parliament, with effect from the 2025 federal elections.
- The present 20th Bundestag (German Parliament) is its largest ever, since the first post-war legislature was inaugurated in 1949, with a total of 736 deputies.
- The current tally positions the Bundestag as the largest Parliament among democratically elected assemblies, even bigger than the 720-strong parliament of the European Union.
- The steady rise in the number of representatives has raised concerns on the strain imposed on the public coffers, as well as implications for the functional efficiency of the Bundestag.
- The context to the July judgment is the constant enlargement of the Bundestag, a consequence of Germany’s complex electoral architecture as well as the fragmentation of the party system in recent years.
What is the Unified Lending Interface by the RBI?
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as part of its strategy to create digital public infrastructure in the country, has announced that a new technology platform called the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) would be introduced by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, Bengaluru which will enable friction-less credit to farmers and MSME borrowers to begin with.
- ULI is a platform that facilitates the seamless flow of a customer’s digitised financial and non-financial data from multiple data service providers to lenders, making credit underwriting seamless and customer journeys frictionless for a diverse range of borrowers, according to Rajesh Bansal, CEO, Reserve Bank Innovation Hub.
- This platform facilitates seamless and consent based flow of digital information, including even land records of various States.
- This will also bring down the time taken for credit appraisal, especially for smaller and rural borrowers without any credit history.
- The ULI architecture has common and standardised Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) designed for a ‘plug and play’ approach to ensure digital access to information from diverse sources.
- This will reduce the complexity of multiple technical integrations besides enabling borrowers to get the benefit of seamless delivery of credit and quicker turnaround time without requiring extensive and time-consuming documentation.
Do AI agents foretell the next wave of autonomy or liability?
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Prelims: Current affairs (Technology)
- Assistants based on artificial intelligence (AI), such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, have been around for more than a decade. An AI assistant can be defined in many ways.
- According to an April 2024 report, Google DeepMind defines “an AI assistant … as an artificial agent with a natural language interface, the function of which is to plan and execute sequences of actions on the user’s behalf across one or more domains and in line with the user’s expectations”.
- The next-generation AI assistants are called AI agents (AIA) and are set to surpass their predecessors in ability as well as efficiency. AIAs can be broadly classified into three categories.
First joint commanders’ conference to see push for theatre commands
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GS 3: Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate
- The detailed modalities prepared by the Services for the creation of Integrated Theatre Commands will be presented to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the first Joint Commanders Conference (JCC) scheduled to be held on September 4 and 5 in Lucknow.
- The meet is expected to see extensive deliberations on the issue, officials in the know said.
- While those discussions continue, plans to set up four more Joint Logistics Nodes (JLNs) are in advanced stages, sources said.
- The new JLNs to come up at Leh, Siliguri, Sulur and Prayagraj will add to the three existing nodes at Mumbai, Guwahati, and Port Blair, two sources independently confirmed.
Cabinet okays seven schemes for farmers worth ₹14,235 crore
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GS 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre
- The Union Cabinet on Monday (September 2, 2024) approved the Digital Agriculture Mission along with a host of other agriculture-related decisions.
- Announcing the approval, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted that that ₹ 2,817 crore Digital Agriculture Mission involves Agri Stack (farmers registry, village land maps registry, crop registry) and Krishi Decision Support System (geospatial data, drought/flood monitoring, weather/satellite data, groundwater/water availability data, modeling for crop yields insurence).
- It will also enable farms to get soil profile, digital crop estimation, digital yield modelling, connect for crop loan, and access to modern tech such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, etc.
‘Be wary of market financialisation’
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Prelims: Indian Economy
- Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V. Anantha Nageswaran cautioned that financialisation, viz. the dominance of the role of financial markets in public policy, might distort macroeconomic outcomes.
- India’s stock market capitalisation was about 140% of the GDP, he said, adding, the record profitability of the Indian financial sector and high levels of market capitalisation, or the ratio of market capitalisation to GDP, gave rise to another phenomenon that deserves closer examination.
Bangladesh to restart talks with India over Teesta water dispute
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GS 2: India and its neighbourhood- relations
- Bangladesh's new interim government has expressed interest in restarting talks with India over sharing the waters of the Teesta River to "find an amicable solution".
- Bangladesh might "engage internationally" through international legal documents and principles if an agreement cannot be reached, adviser to Bangladesh's water resources department Syeda Rizwana Hasan told news agency PTI on Sunday.
