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The Supreme Court delivered a split verdict on whether Muslim students should shed their hijabs at their school gates.
Justice Hemant Gupta upheld Karnataka’s prohibitive government order of February 5, saying “apparent symbols of religious belief cannot be worn to secular schools maintained from State funds”.
Justice Gupta said ‘secularity’ meant uniformity, manifested by parity among students in terms of uniform.Justice Gupta held that adherence to uniform was a reasonable restriction to free expression. The discipline reinforced equality.
The State had never forced students out of State schools by restricting hijab. The decision to stay out was a “voluntary act” of the student.
In his divergent opinion, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said secularity meant tolerance to “diversity”. Wearing or not wearing a hijab to school was “ultimately a matter of choice”. For girls from conservative families, “her hijab is her ticket to education”.
“Asking the girls to take off their hijab before they enter the school gates, is first, an invasion of their privacy, then it is an attack on their dignity, and then ultimately it is a denial to them of secular education. There shall be no restriction on the wearing of hijab anywhere in schools and colleges in Karnataka.
He further remarked that one of the best sights in India was a girl going to school like her brother.Are we making the life of a girl child any better by denying her education, merely because she wears a hijab! All the petitioners (students) want is to wear a hijab! Is it too much to ask in a democracy? How is it against public order, morality or health or even decency. The case would now be re-heard by a larger Bench.
Justice Gupta, in his opinion, saidstudents need to follow the discipline of wearing the school uniform without any “addition, subtraction or modification”.
A student cannot claim the right to wear a headscarf to a secular school as a matter of right. “A girl’s right to express herself by wearing a hijab stopped at the school gate”.
But Justice Dhulia countered that school was a public place. It was not correct to draw a parallel between a school and a jail or a military camp.
It is necessary to have discipline in schools. But discipline not at the cost of freedom or dignity. She carries her dignity and privacy in her person, even inside her school gate or classroom.
He said the fallout of the hijab ban had been that some girl students were not able to appear for their Board exams and others were forced to seek transfer, most likely to madrasas, where they may not get the same standard of education.
ISRO’s own NextGen Launch Vehicle may assume PSLV’s role (Page No. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is developing a Next-Gen Launch Vehicle (NGLV), which will one day replace operational systems like the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), ISRO Chairman S. Somanath has said.
The PSLV, often dubbed the ‘trusted workhorse’ of ISRO, ‘‘will have to retire” one day, Mr. Somanath said during the three-day Engineers Conclave 2022 which opened at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC.
In NGLV, ISRO is understood to be looking at a cost-efficient, three-stage to orbit, reusable heavy-lift vehicle with a payload capability of ten tonnes to Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO).
NGLV will feature semi-cryogenic propulsion (refined kerosene as fuel with liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidiser) for the booster stages which is cheaper and efficient.
We believe at least 10 tonne capability to GTO is needed. Correspondingly, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) capability will be twice that. However, payload capability will be lower when the rocket is reusable.
NGLV will feature a simple, robust design which allows bulk manufacturing, modularity in systems, sub-systems and stages and minimal turnaround time.
Potential uses will be in the areas of launching communication satellites, deep space missions, future human spaceflight and cargo missions.
The technologies, the manufacturing and cost associated with the systems, all go through changes. Same is the case with the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
But the GSLV Mk-III (LVM3) is just a few years old. If you look at launch vehicles, technology induction at the appropriate time is essential.
Mr. Somanath said it is also important to develop a ''business model'' for NGLV so that it serves its aims. This will include launching commercial satellites and national missions as well as ensuring industry participation from the start. With the backing of ISRO's knowledge, it is possible for industries to support and create this rocket as a national asset.
Editorial
The democratisation of India, the Mandal way (Page No. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
In his book The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters, William Dalrymple wrote: “Ten years ago every second person at Delhi drinks parties seemed to be either an old schoolfriend of the Prime Minister or a member of his cabinet. Now, quite suddenly, no one in Delhi knows anyone in power.
A major democratic revolution has taken place almost unnoticed, leaving the urban Anglicised élite on the margins of the Indian political landscape.”
And, in a meet with Mr. Dalrymple, the late Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh remarked after his elevation to the national cabinet in 1996, “…for the first time, power had come to the underprivileged and the oppressed and we will use it to ensure that their lot is bettered.…”
The socio-political movement that led to this phenomenon known as “Mandal” has dramatically changed the demographic diversity of people’s representatives. It is no wonder then that scholar Christophe Jaffrelot called it, ‘India’s Silent Revolution’.
The social justice discourse in modern India can be traced to the initiatives of social revolutionaries such as JyotibaPhule, SavitribaiPhule, SahujiMaharaj and Periyar during colonial rule.
But a sustained intervention with a concrete outcome in terms of policy prescriptions surfaced only with B.R. Ambedkar arriving on the national scene.
The “depressed classes” (Dalits) and “tribals” (Adivasis) — as they were termed by the colonisers — were already listed as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, respectively, by 1935.
The benefits of reservation in education and employment for these social groups in proportion to their population were adopted as soon as the Constitution of India came into force.
But a large section of the “backward classes” and occupational caste groups remained socially and educationally backward; hence, their presence in the bureaucracy, the judiciary, academia or the media remained abysmal.
The post-Independence years witnessed Nehruvian socialism losing its sheen. The polity and governance remained in the grips of cherry-picked brahmanical minds.
At this juncture, the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP) sounded the clarion call, “ Sansopa ne bandhigaanth, pichhdapawesau me saath” (SSP was committed for 60 per cent share for the backward classes”).
The Constituent Assembly had debated caste-class dichotomy. It was envisioned that backward classes would be backward communities.
Falling reserves and the bogey of the RBI’s role (Page No. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
There is a widespread misconception that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been depleting India’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves to defend the rupee.
The RBI cannot simply fritter away India’s forex reserves, held mostly in dollars, by charging its “nostro” account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York.
The RBI is the custodian of India’s forex reserves and is responsible for managing their investments economically. The central bank may not have been adventurous in switching currencies to boost the value of reserves.
But to suggest that the RBI has depleted India’s forex reserves from $642 billion to $537 billion, i.e., from September 8, 2021 to September 30, 2022, by intervening (selling dollars) in India’s inter-bank forex market is manifestly erroneous.
The RBI’s intervention and dollar/rupee exchange rate are surely linked, but the question is of depletion of forex reserves. To grasp this concept, we need to know who the market players are and how the RBI regulates them.
The market players are only banks licensed by the RBI, and the RBI. Individuals and corporates cannot enter the market. They can deal only with their respective banks.
Therefore, the RBI dominates the market, being the regulator, a player and the jury. Thus, it is facile to argue that the dollar/rupee rate is “market determined” and that the RBI has no role in it.
Section 40 of the RBI Act, 1934 (“Transactions in foreign exchange”) stipulates that the Central Government orders the “rate” at which the RBI shall buy or sell forex to banks (authorised persons).
This “rate”, in turn, will be governed by India’s “obligations to the International Monetary Fund [IMF]”. The dollar/rupee rate has thus been subjugated to the United States from British India days.
It is little wonder then that the rupee fell from ₹8/dollar to about ₹82/dollar (in 2022), from November 1981, when the IMF approved the biggest ever $5 billion Special Drawing Rights (about $6.25 billion dollars) loan to India.
Although ₹100/dollar is Door Ast (‘far away’), the target is achievable. Such is the hegemony of dollar holders to slam poor rupee holders to make them poorer still.
The forex market is regulated by the RBI with impregnable exchange control regulations. All the player (banks) are required to be square or near square in their forex positions (spot or forward) at the close of business hours each day. This “overnight limit” is prescribed for each bank by the RBI. Even during the day, the prescribed “daylight limit” cannot be breached. The RBI enforces these limits strictly.
Assume that on a particular day the RBI sells (intervenes) one billion dollars in the market and one bank buys these dollars to remit them abroad for an importer (goods/services) customer.
If that be so, then the funds would have gone abroad anyway since the importer, holding an import licence, can remit funds abroad as a matter of right.
So, one billion of forex reserves depletion is caused not because of the RBI’s intervention but because of the import licence granted by the Ministry of Commerce.
Opinion
Does India need a population policy? (Page No. 9)
(GS Paper 1, Population and Associated Issues)
Earlier this year, the United Nations published data to show that India would surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023.
According to the 2018-19 Economic Survey, India’s demographic dividend will peak around 2041, when the share of the working age population is expected to hit 59%.
In this context, does India need a population policy? Poonam Muttreja and Sonalde Desai discuss the question in a conversation moderated by SreeparnaChakrabarty. Edited excerpts:
We need to move from a family planning approach to a family welfare approach. We should be focusing on empowering men and women in being able to make informed choices about their fertility, health and well-being.
As fertility drops and lifespans rise globally, the world is ageing at a significant pace. Can increasing automation counteract the negative effects of an ageing population or will an ageing population inevitably end up causing a slowdown in economic growth? We need to look at all of that.
We are where we are, so let’s plan for the well-being of our population instead of hiding behind the excuse that we don’t have good schooling or health because there are too many people. That mindset is counterproductive.
It is not about whether the population is large or small; it is about whether it is healthy, skilled and productive. Let me focus on the productive part of it.
Thomas Malthus had said as the population grows, productivity will not be able to keep pace with this growth, and we will see famines, higher mortality, wars, etc.
Luckily, he proved to be wrong. We need to take a lesson out of this and think about how to make our present population productive. Skills are important, but so is economic planning that ensures good jobs, agricultural productivity, etc.
You had mentioned China. The lesson we can take from China is that making sharp changes in public policy to manage the population ended up having unexpected consequences there.
China’s one-child policy led to a sharp reduction in the population growth rate. But now the Chinese have a rapidly rising population of the elderly.
China also tried to relax these policies and is now encouraging people to have two or even three children but the men and women are not ready to comply.
And China’s fertility continues to decline. So, we should focus not on fertility rate, but on creating a situation in which slow changes in the family size take place in the context of a growing economy.
Explainer
The Interpol General Assembly meeting in Delhi (Page No. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Institutions)
The General Assembly of the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) is meeting in Delhi for four days from October 18. This is the second time since 1997 the 195 member-strong body is holding such a large conference in India.
Set up in 1923, the Interpol is a secure information-sharing platform that facilitates criminal investigation of police forces across the globe through collection and dissemination of information received from various police forces.
It keeps track of the movements of criminals and those under the police radar in various regions and tips off police forces which had either sought the Interpol’s assistance or which in its opinion will benefit from the particulars available with it.
Aided by state-of-the art databases and computer analytics, the Interpol operates round the clock and employs some of the best minds in the area of crime analysis and technology. It aims to promote the widest-possible mutual assistance between criminal police forces.
The head of Interpol is the President who is elected by the General Assembly. He comes from one of the member-nations and holds office for four years.
The day-to-day activities are overseen by a full-time Secretary General elected by the General Assembly, who holds office for five years.
The General Assembly lays down the policy for execution by its Secretariat which has several specialised directorates for cybercrime, terrorism, drug trafficking, financial crime, environmental crime, human trafficking, etc. Every member-country is the Interpol’s face in that country.
All contact of a country’s law enforcement agency with Interpol is through the highest investigating body of the land.
The CBI assumes this role in India with one of its senior officers heading its exclusive Interwing (the National Central Bureaus) for collation of information and liaison with the world body.
It is a structured communication issued by the Interpol to all member-nations notifying the name(s) of persons against whom an arrest warrant is pending in a particular country.
The notice issued requests all member nations that if the named individual(s) is located in their country an immediate communication should be sent to the nation that wants him in connection with a criminal investigation.
The entire global police leadership will be in Delhi for this session. Smuggling of arms and drugs continue to worry those who desire to see a stable world order.
The session is also expected to throw up a few tricky questions involving protection given to deviance by the establishment itself in some regions of the world on grounds of dubious economic and sovereign considerations.
News
Centre to help set up paddy straw pellet units to arrest stubble burning (Page No. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
With winter approaching and instances of stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana rising, the Union Environment Ministry announced a ₹50 crore scheme to incentivise industrialists and entrepreneurs to set up paddy straw pelletisation and torrefaction plants.
Paddy straw made into pellets or torrefiedcan be mixed along with coal in thermal power plants. This saves coal as well as reduces carbon emissions that would otherwise have been emitted were the straw burnt in the fields, as is the regular practice of most farmers in Punjab and Haryana.
New units set up after Thursday would be eligible for government funding in the form of capital to set up such plants. The estimated cost of setting up a regular pelletisation plant, which can process a tonne per hour, is ₹35 lakh. Under the scheme, the Centre will fund such plants to a maximum of ₹70 lakh subject to capacity.
Similarly, the cost of establishing a torrefaction plant is ₹70 lakh and under the scheme, is eligible for a maximum funding of ₹1.4 crore. Torrefaction is costlier but can deliver a product whose energy content is much higher and theoretically substitute for more coal in a power plant.
The Centre has underlined that this would be a “one-time only” scheme and regular pellet plants would be eligible for ₹40 crore of the overall pie.
Every year, about 27 million tonne of paddy straw is generated in Punjab and Haryana. The problem is that about 75% or 20 million tonne is from non-basmati rice, which cannot be fed to cattle as fodder because of its high silica content. About 11 million tonne can be managed in the field and the rest is usually burnt which adds to the air pollution crisis in Delhi,” said MM Kutty, Chairman, Commission Air Quality Management (CAQM), at an event here to announce the scheme.
Through the years the government has attempted to dissuade farmers from burning straw through penalising them as well as incentivising them, such as giving them alternatives to burning the straw. It has also encouraged using bio-decomposer, a chemical that decomposes the straw into mulch.
There were 867 instances of stubble burning in Punjab till October 12 this year. This is close to the 925 reported same time last year but about a fourth of the 3,325 incidents reported in 2020, according to data from the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREAMS) Laboratory, Indian Agricultural Research Institute.
‘MGNREGS made up for up to 80% income loss during pandemic (Page No. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
In a first, a study providing empirical evidence conducted on the impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) during the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that the wages earned under the Act helped compensating somewhere between 20% and 80% of the income loss incurred because of the lockdown.
The report also said that around 39% all job card-holding households interested in working under the MGNREGA did not get a single day of work in the COVID year of 2020-21.
As of 2022-23, there are 15.4 crore active workers under the MGNREGA. The study titled “Employment guarantee during COVID-19 — The Role of MGNREGA in the year after the 2020 lockdown” conducted by Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD), SamajPragatiSahyog and NREGA consortium.
The study was aimed at determining the extent to which working in the programme provided income support to vulnerable households during the pandemic.
The team surveyed four States — Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The annual income of the households in these eight blocks pre-COVID ranged between ₹33,414 in Phulparas in Bihar and ₹1,06,558 in Ghatigaon in Madhya Pradesh. The dip in income during the period ranged 56.4% in Bidar, Karnataka to 8.9% in Surgana, Maharashtra.
The final report of the survey that was conducted in December 2021 said, “We estimate that for households who found work in both the periods (pre-COVID and during COVID), the increased earnings from MGNREGA were able to compensate for somewhere between 20% and 80% of income loss depending on the block.
For households who had not worked in the pre-COVID year but found work during the COVID year, we find that MGNREGA earnings compensated for anywhere between 20% and 100% of income lost from other sources.
At the same time, the study also pointed out that, MGNREGA was unable to meet with the actual demand from the ground.
MGNREGA is a right to work programme that guarantees 100 days of employment to every rural household that demands work.
A quest for the ‘ghost’ cat based on lore (Page No. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Species In News)
A big cat’s skin that no one saw is behind the survey of the ‘ghost of the mountains’ in India’s easternmost tiger reserve.
The snow leopard has never been spotted nor recorded in the Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district. The 1,985 sq. km reserve bordering Myanmar has an elevation varying from 200 metres to 4,571 metres above sea level.
However, wildlife officials in the State are eagerly awaiting the analysis of the data of a survey conducted in 2021 to ascertain the presence of the elusive snow leopard, often referred to as a mountain ghost because of its coat that helps it blend in a snowy-rocky environment.
We provided all the data of the survey to the World Wide Fund for Nature earlier this year. We expect the results by November.
The data was collected from a high-altitude Himalayan belt across 11 wildlife divisions from Tawang in the west and Anini to the east.
Namdapha is the known home of three other large cats — tiger, leopard and clouded leopard. The belief that the national park is also the habitat of the snow leopard is based on the claim of a hunter from the Lisu ethnic community that he possessed the skin of the carnivore.
“A person in Vijaynagar (close to Myanmar border, in Changlang district) had described having a skin that could have been of a snow leopard. He called it Lamaphu, which is possibly the local name for a snow leopard. The tiger is called Lama in the Lisu dialect.
The Namdapha National Park authorities have a checklist that mentions “reports of skin with Lisus”.He also said the Lisu person who possessed the skin or members of his family should have been asked where they got the wildlife body part from.There is a possibility that the skin could have been smuggled in since the Lisu people are also distributed in Myanmar.
The Lisusare known for their unique hunting skills. They had engaged in retaliatory hunting due to the lack of communication with Forest officials.
This began changing in 2005 when the Union Environment Ministry’s Tiger Task Force recommended using the community’s hunting expertise in the conservation efforts.