26 August 2024, The Hindu
With hundreds stranded in Sao Paulo, India to broach topic with Brazil Minister
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GS 2 Indian Diaspora
- The plight of hundreds of men and women, many of them Indian, who are stranded at an airport in Sao Paulo as they are suspected to be illegal immigrants, maybe discussed during meetings with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who landed in Delhi on Sunday (August 25, 2024).
- Mr. Vieira is in New Delhi to hold the 9th India-Brazil Joint Commission meeting with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and they will also discuss the agenda for the upcoming G-20 summit in Rio De Janeiro on November 18 and 19, 2024, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement announcing the visit.
- “With Brazil holding the G-20 Presidency this year, the Ministers will also discuss how the two countries as [part of the] Troika can take forth key G-20 outcomes from the Indian Presidency last year,” the Ministry said, adding that the two sides would discuss ways to further strengthen the India-Brazil strategic partnership signed in 2006.
- Mr. Vieira is meeting with business leaders on ways to grow bilateral trade, that has ranged between $10-$15 billion in the past few years.
Laws to curb crimes against women made stricter, says Modi in Maharashtra
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GS 1: Social empowerment
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday (August 25, 2024) said his government is reinforcing laws to impose stricter punishments for crimes against women.
- “I assure you, the Central Government is with the State Governments in every way to stop atrocities against women.
- We cannot stop until this sinful mentality has been eradicated from Indian society,” the Prime Minister exclaimed.
Kerala govt to hold post-disaster needs assessment in Wayand
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GS 3: Disaster and Disaster Management
- Kerala is all set to begin Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) in the landslides-affected areas in Meppadi grama panchayat in Wayanad from Monday.
- The objective of the PDNA is to assess the damage caused by the landslides and define a strategy for recovery and reconstruction, including an estimation of financial costs across the impacted sectors.
Middle path
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GS 3: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- The Centre has restored guaranteed pensions for its employees, meeting their demand halfway, and weakly trying to hold on to principles of fiscal prudence.
- Pension schemes around the world, whether contributory and market linked or underwritten by the exchequer, are facing a crisis, due to multiple factors, including demographic reasons.
- According to the Reserve Bank of India, the total Budget estimates of various States and Union Territories for pension in 2023-24 was ₹5,22,105.4 crore, which is between 6%-21% of their total revenue receipts.
- Pensioners argue that it is their deferred wages. It can also be argued that pensions from the exchequer are at the cost of future generations.
- Governments are outsourcing jobs through contracts, and resorting to innovations such as Agnipath — a short service scheme for the military services — and the ballooning of pension bills is among the reasons that drive such measures.
- Governments are also leaving posts unfilled. All such measures are leading to two things.
Catalyst for change
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GS 1: Social empowerment
- At different points of time, come events that have the potential to shape the future.
- Whether these catalysts fulfil that potential to the fullest extent or not is in the hands of the people in their vortex.
- The Justice K. Hema Committee report that studied the issues faced by women in cinema, could well be one such catalyst.
- The three-member committee was constituted in 2017, based on a petition submitted by the Kerala-based Women in Cinema Collective, and submitted its report two years later.
- It was released last week, several paragraphs redacted, and contains unsurprising and yet disturbing revelations about the state of affairs in the film industry — discrimination, exploitation and sexual harassment of women.
- The term ‘casting couch’, hatched in Hollywood, has become repugnantly accepted as a euphemism for sexual favours in exchange for a role in films.
- Justice Hema points out that making the exchange of sexual favours the passkey for entry into the field itself, and normalising it and conflating it with consensual sexual activity, makes the industry inherently exploitative.
New-age gateway devices, the latest health threat
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GS 3: Awareness in the fields of IT
- What happens when a portrayed healthy alternative turns out to be more dangerous than the original?
- This is precisely what is happening with new-age gateway devices such as e-cigarettes, vaping pens, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems, or ENDS, heat-not-burn (HNB) devices and other heated tobacco products (HTPs).
- All these devices were portrayed to offer a healthier alternative to smoking that would make it easier to quit tobacco.
- But the reality is quite different. Instead, they have caused a public health crisis, causing physical harm and affecting the mental well-being of children.
- Instead of helping people quit tobacco, the manufacturers of these new-age gateway devices have discovered a lucrative market — children.
- This has led to a surge in youth vaping, creating a new pandemic.
- For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among middle and high school students in United States, with 2.1 million (7.7%) students using e-cigarettes, including 5,50,000 (4.6%) middle school students.
- These devices are now getting a new generation hooked on nicotine and exposing them to potential long-term health consequences.
Reality of reel life, exploitation as a structural problem
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GS 1: Issues relating development and management of Social Sector/Services
- The Justice K. Hema Committee report, which was released by the Kerala government on August 19, 2024, has ignited a debate on the issues faced by women in Malayalam film industry.
- The committee, which was formed in 2017, had submitted its report to the government in 2019.
- A redacted version of the report has now been put up in the public domain.
- Though it addresses the issues faced by women in the vernacular films, the issues transcend these boundaries.
Investing in persons with disabilities
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GS 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes
- Arecent Hindi movie, Srikanth, starring Rajkummar Rao, narrates the story of the industrialist Srikanth Bolla and his journey of overcoming the challenge of visual impairment.
- In the film, the people of Srikanth’s father’s village ask the family not to invest in the son’s education or life in general.
- Many parents of children with some form of disability are similarly made to believe that their offspring are not worthy of investment.
- Persons with disabilities (PwDs) face social stigma, marginalisation in all sectors, and discrimination in education and employment; most importantly, they struggle for dignity.
- Educational institutions lack the necessary infrastructure and support mechanisms and workplaces lack robust diversity policies that would give proper representation to PwDs.
- The 2023 report by Nifty 50 constituent companies reveals that only five out of the 50 companies have more than 1% of PwDs on their rolls, with four of them being public sector companies.
- Similarly, data from the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People reveals that less than 1% of India’s educational institutions are disabled-friendly, less than 40% of school buildings have ramps, and approximately 17% have accessible restrooms.
- A report of the Sarthak Educational Trust titled ‘Accessibility and Inclusion in Higher Education in India’ states that reservation is provided under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, in government jobs, and incentives in non-government jobs, but there is a clear lack of implementation.
- The lack of infrastructure combined with the lack of inclusive policies hinders the full participation of PwDs in society.
- Thus, it is imperative that both public and private institutions invest in the uplift of PwDs.
The polity of J&K is at an inflection point
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GS 2: Issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
- The Election Commission of India (ECI)’s announcement that Assembly elections will soon be held in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has already recast mainstream politics in the Union Territory.
- Assembly elections were last held in the erstwhile State of J&K in 2014.
- Today, a region marred by three decades of conflict and separatist Hurriyat’s boycott politics is charting a new path with electoral politics and drawing new battle lines between regional and national political forces.
- The manifestos of J&K’s two regional parties, the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), reflect this change.
- Since the armed uprising in J&K in the 1990s, mainstream parties would focus on sadak, bijli, pani (road, electricity, water) during elections, leaving core ideological politics of aspirations and sentiment to the separatists.
- However, the Centre’s move on August 5, 2019, to end J&K’s semi-autonomous status and divide the State into two UTs (J&K and Ladakh) posed an existential crisis to the mainstream parties, forcing them to seek restoration of the rights that existed earlier.
- As a result, after many decades, the top leaders in J&K are looking inwards rather than at New Delhi.
On West Bengal’s civic police volunteers
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GS 2: Important aspects of Governance
- As protests rage across West Bengal and in different parts of the country over the rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, questions are being raised as to how she was assaulted inside a State-run health facility.
- The accused, arrested hours after the crime, is a civic police volunteer, who not only had access to the hospital but also the emergency building where the victim was found dead on August 9.
- The accused, Sanjay Roy, had been working as a civic police volunteer with the Kolkata Police since 2019.
- Despite being engaged as a civic police volunteer, the accused enjoyed certain facilities accorded to police personnel; he drove a motorbike belonging to the police, and stayed in the barracks of the Kolkata Armed Police’s fourth battalion.
- There are reports that the 35-year-old was also associated with the Kolkata Police Welfare Committee and helped in admission of relatives of police personnel to hospitals.
What did the 2013 panel say on death penalty for rape?
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GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
- After the brutal rape and murder of a doctor on duty at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, there has been a clamour of voices seeking the death penalty for the accused.
- The Justice J.S. Verma Committee recommendations, which led to the amendment of criminal laws in 2013, had specifically said it was not inclined to recommend the death penalty for rape even for the rarest of rare cases. “...seeking of [the] death penalty would be a regressive step in the field of sentencing and reformation,” the committee pointed out.
- The Union Cabinet did not take the recommendation on the death penalty when it cleared an ordinance on sexual assault in 2013, and signed the criminal amendments into law.
- The committee to amend criminal laws was set up after the gang rape of a paramedic student in Delhi on December 16, 2012.
- Led by Justice J.S. Verma (retired), the committee submitted its recommendations on January 23, 2013.
- One of its key suggestions, that the death penalty does not necessarily act as a deterrent against such crimes, was overlooked.
Tackling the frictions in cross-border payments: a call for innovative solutions
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GS 3: Awareness in the fields of IT
- The global cross-border payments market was valued at $181.9 trillion in 2022, and is projected to reach $356.5 trillion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 7.3% from 2023 to 2032.
- Historically, cross-border payments were initiated through manual processes, often involving letters of credit, checks, and extensive documentation.
- They have evolved significantly throughout history, closely intertwined with the development of trade, currency exchange, and industrialisation.
- With the onset of industrialisation and wire transfers, banks began to facilitate cross-border fund transfers.
- However, despite technological advances, cross-border payments remain riddled with inefficiencies that hinder their effectiveness.
- These frictions affect businesses and individuals and pose a significant barrier to financial inclusion and economic growth.
- Enhancing the efficiency of cross-border payments is a key priority on the G-20 roadmap.
- The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has released numerous consultations to gather insights and drive improvements.
- The FSB has identified particularly four challenges associated with cross-border payments — high costs, low speed, limited access, and insufficient transparency.
Judiciary advocating secular civil code for decades, says Modi
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GS 2: Indian Constitution
- Reiterating his call for a “secular civil code”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday (August 25, 2024) said though his government had become vocal on the issue for the first time, the judiciary in the country had been advocating it for several decades.
- He praised the judiciary for fulfilling its “moral responsibility” of being vigilant and active on national issues.
- Addressing the concluding ceremony of platinum jubilee celebrations of the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur, Mr. Modi referred to his Independence Day remarks and said the judiciary’s “clear stand” on secular civil code, which was an issue of “national unity”, would strengthen the countrymen’s faith in the courts.
Classical language centres ask for autonomy
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GS 1: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature
- Special centres set up for the promotion of Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia after they were designated classical languages are demanding autonomy in their functioning in order to better carry out their functions.
- India has six classical languages — Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia.
- While four of the centres for classical languages function under the aegis of the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, the centre for Tamil is autonomous.
- For the promotion of Sanskrit, dedicated universities also receive funds directly from the Union Education Ministry.
Drug money is endangering security and economy: Shah
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GS 3: Security challenges and their management in border areas - linkages of organized crime with terrorism
- Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Sunday (August 25, 2024) virtually inaugurated the zonal office of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) here, even as he said consumption of contraband in Chhattisgarh was higher than the national average.
- Post the inauguration, Mr. Shah said the percentage of use of sedatives in Chhattisgarh was 1.45, which was more than the national average and the use of cannabis (ganja) was also 4.98%, which was also more than the national average.
