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Eight months after the Haryana Assembly passed the Bill, the state government Monday notified rules to implement a law that prevents forcible religious conversions — and places the burden of proof of innocence on the accused.
As per the Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Rules, 2022, “the burden of proving innocence that the conversion was not affected through misrepresentation, use of force, under threat, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or for marriage for the purpose of carrying out conversion shall be on the accused.
According to the notified rules, the person seeking to convert and the priest who will officiate the conversion are required to seek prior permission from the administration, specifying reasons.
The priest is also required to provide in advance to the District Magistrate details of the guests who are likely to attend the ceremony.
The rules require the accused to pay a “monthly maintenance” and “expenses of the proceedings” in case of litigation to the aggrieved while considering that person’s income and the income of the accused. In cases where a child is born in the marriage, the accused will also have to pay the maintenance to the child till he is a minor “in the best interest of the child”.
At the time of declaring the marriage as null and void, or at any time subsequent thereto, the Court may order the accused to pay such gross sum or such monthly maintenance or periodical amount (for a term not exceeding the life of the accused),” the rules state.
As per the rules, even if the accused dies during pendency of trial, courts shall be empowered to secure payment of maintenance amount by making a charge on the immovable property of the deceased.
Haryana is among six BJP-ruled states to have passed stringent anti-religious conversion laws that mainly target conversions for marriage. These laws primarily shift the burden of proof of innocence from the person who has converted to his/her partner.
The rules further lay out the procedure of prior declaration of conversion of religion whereby “any person intending to convert his/her religion, shall, prior to such conversion, give a declaration to the District Magistrate of the district in which he/she is residing”.
Govt & Politics
Collective efforts weakened terror ecosystem: Thakur (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
The Centre has achieved a 94-per cent conviction rate in terror financing cases and there is a significant decline in terror incidents in Jammu and Kashmir due to actions of the armed forces, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said.
An era of peace has dawned in the Northeast since 2014 — insurgency-related violence has seen a sharp decline of 80% and civilian deaths have seen an 89% drop,” he claimed. He also mentioned the “achievement of surrender by 6,000 militants since 2014”.
On counter-terrorism, Thakur said while the government has worked on the legal front by strengthening the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, it took steps at the enforcement level by giving National Investigation Agency (NIA), the premier investigation agency to probe terror-related cases, a truly federal structure by introducing the NIA (Amendment) Act.The collective effect of these measures, he said, has been the “weakening of the terror ecosystem”.
Thakur said the government is “committed to go beyond armed action to counter terrorism and has worked to create an atmosphere of lasting peace” across the Northeast. Noting the peace agreements inked since 2014 — the Bodo Accord in January 2020, Bru-Reang Agreement in January 2020, NLFT-Tripura Agreement in August 2019, Karbi Anglong Agreement in September 2021, and Assam-Meghalaya Inter-State Boundary Agreement in March 2022 — he called these a “legacy of the government’s achievements”.
On the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Thakur said its rollback has been only a matter of discussion all this while but the Narendra Modi government withdrew it from a large part of the Northeast, including the whole of Tripura and Meghalaya.
It remains in force in only three districts of Arunachal Pradesh. Sixty per cent of Assam is free of AFSPA, 15 police stations under six districts have been taken out of the category of disturbed area, (and) disturbed area notification has been removed from 15 police stations in the seven districts,” he said.
On rescuing Indians in distress from across the world, the minister said 22,500 citizens were rescued under Operation Ganga in February-March 2022, 670 Indian citizens were rescued from Afghanistan in Operation Devi Shakti.
Ideas page
The era of free data is over (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, IT and Computers)
The US is a fractious nation, where all 52 states rarely agree on anything and the two major political parties agree on nothing at all. However, there is one piece of legislation making its way through the political system, where the Democrats, Republicans, Senate and Congress seem to be concurring with each other. This is the ADPPA, or the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, which promises to radically transform the US data privacy and protection landscape.
When made into law, a “covered entity may not collect, process, or transfer covered data unless the collection, processing, or transfer is limited to what is reasonably necessary and proportionate to” achieve one of the 17 allowed purposes.
It will also ban the use of “sensitive” data like health information and geolocation, ban targeting minors and even not allow the “Accept All” buttons that the European GDPR has made ubiquitous.
The US is not alone; while the GDPR set the trend, UNCTAD reports that 80 per cent of all countries in the world have a data protection and privacy legislation or are putting one into effect. Not all of these laws are as strong as in the US, Europe or Australia — the ones in China and Brazil are considered “moderate”, while, interestingly, the ones in India and South Asia are fairly “limited” in their scope. Most of them, including the US and Indian ones, have been legislated quite recently.
There is a reason that countries are falling over themselves to control and manage data – it is only lately that data has been thought of as a valuable resource as well as a potent weapon, and governments like to own and control resources and weapons.
Historically, the greatest wealth has been created by harnessing and exploiting natural resources. The first barons and lords were those who owned and controlled land, and had serfs extract agricultural value out of them.
Timber was the next logical resource to be exploited. Railroads built on virtually free land built the next generation of barons, who were followed by mining magnates scooping out minerals from the earth.
Huge wealth was amassed by colonial resource exploitation. Then came oil; wars were fought, borders redrawn, fortunes built, and oceans overrun over oil. Now, data has been pronounced the new oil, and future world powers will be created on the back of data.
Explained
Trends in organs donations (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
After a fall during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, organ donation numbers bounced back in 2021. However, the number of deceased donations — organs donated by the kin of those who suffered brain death or cardiac death — has remained lower than the number of donations from living persons, data presented by the government in Parliament show.
Of the 12,387 organs — kidney, liver, heart, lungs, and pancreas among others — harvested in 2021, only 1,743 — a little more than 14% — were from deceased donors. The numbers harvested in 2021 were close to the highest in the last five years (12,746, in 2019), the data show.
The numbers are skewed in favour of living donations — organs like kidney and liver donated by living family members. A total 10,644 organs were harvested from living donors, which was more than the 10,608 living donations of 2019. Only 14.07% of the total organs harvested in 2021 were from deceased donors, much less than the 16.77% of 2019.
The proportion of deceased donations — and the absolute number of donations — was higher still in 2017 and 2018. Of the total donations, 2,152 or 22.5% were from deceased unrelated donors in 2017 and 2,493 or 23.6% in 2018.
There is also a geographical skew in deceased donations. All but two deceased organ donations in 2021 were in 15 states, with the top five — Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka — accounting for more than 85% of the total.
One reason for the geographical skew could be that most organ transplant and harvesting centres are concentrated in these geographies.
Dr Krishan Kumar, director, National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), said the number of deceased donations were slowly picking up to pre-pandemic levels. “But our aim is to reverse the current trend of nearly 80 per cent transplants using organs from living donors,” he said.
The first reason is the gap in the number of organs needed and the number of transplants that happen in the country.
In absolute numbers, India conducts the third highest number of transplants in the world. Yet, of the estimated 1.5-2 lakh persons who need a kidney transplant every year, only around 8,000 get one.
Of the 80,000 persons who require a liver transplant, only 1,800 get one. And of the 10,000 who need a heart transplant, only 200 get it.
Economy
DPDP, Telecom Bills to be cleared in Monsoon session says Vaishnaw (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The government is expecting to get Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP Bill) and Telecommunication Bill passed in Monsoon session of Parliament, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday, at Google For India event.
The IT and telecom minister said another bill on Digital India Act will be also floated in a month for public consultation. Vaishnaw said under Telecommunication Bill, the government will be coming up with light touch regulation with focus on user’s protection.
He said that the prime minister has given a very clear target of creating a comprehensive legal regulatory framework and the entire exercise, including the three bills, Digital India, DPDP and Indian Telecommunication Bill 2022, should be completed within a period of 14-16 months.
According to an official notice on December 17, the Ministry of Electronics and IT extended the last date for receiving public comments on the draft digital DPDP Bill till January 2, 2023.
The company is focusing on startups from India and out of its $300 million for the startups, around one-fourth will be invested in entities that are led by women, he added.
Google in 2020 had announced plans to invest $10 billion in India over next five to seven years as it looks to help accelerate adoption of digital services in the key overseas market.
Through Google IDF, the company bought a 7.73 per cent stake in Jio for $4.5 billion and a 12 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel for $700 million.
The company had launched $10 billion (about Rs 75,000 crore) to make access to the internet affordable. Through Google India Digitisation Fund, the company bought a 7.73 per cent stake in Jio for $4.5 billion and a 1.2 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel for $700 million.
Pichai, is on his visit to India after a gap of around three-and-a-half years. He met President DroupadiMurmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held a joint session with Union IT and Telecom Minister AswhiniVaishnaw.