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Calling for trust in the “robust nature of our democracy,” Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud Saturday said there is “no question of any pressure” on the Supreme Court from the executive and there was a wealth of evidence to show that the courts were “speaking truth to power” and “constantly holding government to account.”
Answering a specific query at the India Today conclave, the CJI said that in his 23 years as a judge of the High Court, as Chief justice of the High Court and judge of the Supreme Court, “no one…has told me to decide a case in a in a particular way.
We are so clear in the principles which we follow. I wouldn’t even talk to a colleague who is presiding over a case and ask them what is going on in that particular case. We have a cup of coffee every morning but there are some lines which we draw for ourselves”.
If by pressure, you meant a sense of pressure from the executive, from the political arm of government, absolutely no. And I hope I am speaking for the rest of the system as well.
Govt & Politics
PM: Millets can solve food crisis, help climate resilience (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Citing examples of India’s lead in making yoga a global phenomenon and creating a global platform for pushing solar energy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has similarly promoted millets for global benefit.
Speaking at the ‘Global Millets (Shree Anna) Conference’, he said millet will bring income to small farmers of the country, solve issues of food security, curb lifestyle diseases, and help in climate change resilience.
Modi said the global branding of millets will help India’s 2.5 crore small and marginal farmers who are dependent on these crops.
He said this is the first time after Independence that the government has taken cognisance of the issues of small farmers at this level. Besides delegates from countries such as Maldives, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, and the Gambia, more than 75 lakh farmers virtually joined the event, held at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Delhi’s Pusa. A commemorative stamp and coin was also launched at the event.
Modi said India’s work towards promoting millets since 2018 has led to an increase in consumption in 12 or so millets-growing states — the consumption increased from 2 kg or 3 kg per person per month to 14 kg per person per month.
He said more than 500 start-ups have been set up for millet products. Farmers’ organisations and self-help groups are also coming forward in this direction, he said.
G-20: Second tourism track meet to focus on adventure sport (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The second tourism track meeting under India’s G20 Presidency– to be held in West Bengal’s Siliguri and Darjeeling in the first week of April – will focus on the potential of adventure tourism.
The first Tourism Working Group meeting held at Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch last month focused on archaeological and rural tourism.
The five priority areas – green tourism, digitalisation, skills, tourism MSMEs and destination management – were introduced by India in the working session and were endorsed by all G20 members, invitee countries and international organisations.
The second Tourism Working Group meeting will be held from April 1 to 3 during which the delegates will discuss deeper and broader aspects of the five priorities of the group.
The first meet offered a tour of the Harappan site of Dholavira, keeping with the archaeological tourism theme, the second meet includes a day-long tour of Darjeeling.
With a presentation from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation and interventions by G20 troika (India, Indonesia and Brazil), the working session is aimed at finalising the first draft outcome, officials say.
The draft will be factored in during the tourism track ministerial, to be held in Goa in July, and later, the G20 Summit in Delhi this September.
The main attraction will be the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, also known as ‘Toy Train Ride’, which will start from Ghum, India’s highest railway station at an altitude of 2,258 metres, to Batasia Loop, which offers a view of the Kanchenjunga peak.
The delegates will also be taken for tea-tasting and moonlight tea leaf plucking experience to promote the Darjeeling tea brand, which was given the first GI protection in India in 2004. They will also visit Raj Bhavan, the summer residence of the Governor of West Bengal.
Express Network
Wheat misses MSP ahead of procurement in MP (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A good crop, combined with the Centre’s decision to offload up to 45 lakh tonnes (lt) of grain from the Food Corporation of India’s stocks in the open market, has led to Madhya Pradesh (MP) farmers selling wheat below the official minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2,125 per quintal.
Normal-quality wheat is selling at Rs 1,800-2,000/quintal across mandis in Malwa, Bhopal and Narmadapuram regions (of western MP). And the government hasn’t even begun procuring wheat at MSP.
Tridevi, who is associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and Sahakar Bharati farmer and cooperatives organisations, warned that a delay in the start of MSP purchase operations could cost the ruling BJP dear in an election year. The state is scheduled to go for Assembly polls by November.
The MP government has announced commencement of wheat procurement from March 25, even as market arrivals of the crop – much of which is sown by the first week of November – have started early this month. Farmers in MP are required to register themselves before the marketing season for selling wheat to state agencies at MSP.
Opinion
Disability and caste bias: A shared struggle (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
A common thread of vulnerability, victimization and stigmatization run through disability and caste-based discrimination that makes out a strong case for intersectional and interrelational engagement with both these forms of discriminations. Viewing these two types of discriminations through distinct axis provides for empathy and comradery for concerns of one another.
Anchoring the identities of caste and gender with disability helps to comprehend different shades of vulnerability. A Dalit woman with a disability is marginalised both within the disability group as well as from outside, and they are also subject to violence and stigmatization by disabled and nondisabled men within the family and outside.
The Supreme Court of India recently amplified this vulnerability by looking at violence against a blind Dalit woman through the lens of intersectionality.
An upper-caste disabled man may have hesitation to engage and interact with people with disabilities belonging to lower castes due to prevailing caste consciousness.
On the other hand, the antagonization between disabled men belonging to the upper caste and Dalit men with a disability is also well known, with the former deriding the latter for enjoying the “dual benefits”.
Presently, the disability rights movement is mostly limited to claiming reservations in jobs and fighting for petty governmental benefits.
The movement has not yet been able to come out of the grips of medical and rehabilitation professionals. Characterization of the disabled as ‘Divyang’ by the political establishment merely endorses the Ableist segregation of the disabled by sugarcoating their disability and from thin air implies divinity in their bodies as much as Mahatma Gandhi had purportedly looked at Dalits as “Harijans,” a term reprobated by the community.
Unlike the Dalit movement, there is little realisation in the Disability rights movement about liberation or self-determination. Moreover, disability rights movements are fragmentary, with each type of disability having its own chorus and agenda.
In fact, barring a few organisations like National Platforms for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD), India lacks a cohesive and organised cross-disabilities movement.
Economy
Payment system operators must focus on governance, risk management: RBI Guv (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das urged payment system operators to focus on ensuring good governance, prudent risk management and responsive grievance redress mechanism.
Das asked PSOs to work on formation of self-regulatory organisations (SROs) for the greater good of all stakeholders.
For long term success, the PSOs should specifically focus on ensuring good governance and prudent risk management; maintaining robust IT infrastructure with cyber resilience; and putting in place responsive grievance redress mechanism,” Das said, while addressing the Payment System Operators (PSO) Conference in Kochi.
Every failed transaction, every fraud attempted or actually carried out, every complaint that is not satisfactorily addressed should be a cause of concern and must invite a detailed root cause analysis.
According to the Governor, availability and affordability of an expeditious grievance redress mechanism is of utmost importance to ensure public trust in digital payments.
While the traditional bank branch model offers a physical place where customers can lodge their grievances, the same may not be the case in digital payments where users sometimes find it difficult to ascertain the appropriate forum for lodging their grievances.
More the struggle undertaken by people in resolving their grievances, more unlikely it becomes that they would attempt digital payments in future, adding that prompt reconciliation of transactions by PSOs is an easy and expeditious method of addressing customer grievances.