15 July 2019: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

Context:

The Delhi High Court has relaxed the law governing termination of pregnancy to allow a woman to abort her 25-week foetus diagnosed with a congenital anomaly which made it impossible for the child to remain alive after birth.

Abortion in India:

• Abortion in India is legal in certain circumstances.
• It can be performed on various grounds until 20 weeks of pregnancy.
• In exceptional cases, a court may allow a termination after 20 weeks.

Background:

• Before 1971, abortion was criminalized under Section 312 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
• Except in cases where abortion was carried out to save the life of the woman, it was a punishable offense and criminalized women/providers, with whoever voluntarily caused a woman with child to miscarry facing three years in prison and/or a fine, and the woman availing of the service facing seven years in prison and/or a fine.
• Government of India instated a Committee in 1964 led by Shantilal Shah to come up with suggestions to draft the abortion law for India. The recommendations were accepted in 1970 and introduced in the Parliament as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill. This bill was passed in August 1971 as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act.
• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 provides the legal framework for making Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC) services available in India. Termination of pregnancy is permitted for a broad range of conditions up to 20 weeks of gestation.
• As per the provisions of the MTP Act, only the consent of woman whose pregnancy is being terminated is required. However, in case of a minor i.e. below the age of 18 years, or a mentally ill woman, consent of guardian is required.
• The MTP Act 1971, was amended in 2002 to facilitate better implementation and increase access for women especially in the private health sector.

Issues:

• The MTP Act does not have a definition of termination of pregnancy. For this purpose, it has been recommended to include a definition for termination of pregnancy.
• It has been recommended to replace the term “registered medical practitioner” with “registered health care provider”. This would cover the expanded provider base being suggested, by bringing in Nurses and ANMs as well as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopath practitioners as legitimate providers of abortion service.
• The MTP Act 1971 provides the legal framework for provision of induced abortion services in India. However, to ensure effective roll-out of services there is a need for standards, guidelines and standard operating procedures.

Details:

• The mother, in her plea, had challenged certain sections of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act.
• Assistance of medical experts from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to determine the condition of the foetus
• The experts observed that in a case where the condition of the foetus is incompatible with life, the rigour of Section 3(2) of the MTP Act deserves to be relaxed.

Context:

According to an analysis of crime data of seven States, Investigation into nearly half the sexual offences cases are not being completed within the stipulated 60-day period.

Background:

• To check sexual crimes against women and children, the Centre approved the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 last year which prescribed the time-limit for completion of investigation.
• The law was initially promulgated as an Ordinance on April 21, 2018 following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and the rape of a woman in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
• As per the government data, there are already 664 dedicated special courts with 2,021 public prosecutors and another 1,023 courts are planned.
• The Empowered Committee on the Nirbhaya Fund approved ₹767.25 crore for setting up 1,023 fast-track courts in November last year, but 10 months later the final nod from the Expenditure Finance Committee is awaited.
• Sources in the Ministry of Women and Child Development say 18 States have come on board to set up the new courts and it is now up to the Law and Justice Ministry to appoint judges and public prosecutors for them.

Details:

• The Supreme Court noted that trial had been completed in only 4% of the 24,000 cases of sexual offences that were filed from January to June.
• It is observed that, in many States, the fast-track courts designated to handle rape cases are also handling other criminal cases leading to delay in verdicts.
• According to the ITSSO analysis in the seven States — Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh. Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand — final reports were submitted only in 26,343 of the 47,662 sexual assault cases within the mandatory period.

Conclusion:

As the government plans to set up more courts, it will have to address lacunae like special courts handling other criminal cases apart from sexual offences.

Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences ITSSO:

• The Home Ministry launched an analytics tool — Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences (ITSSO) in February 2019.
• The tool monitors and tracks time-bound investigation.
• It is part of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) that connects over 15,000 police stations across the country.

Context:

Pakistan has agreed for a visa-free year-long travel to Kartarpur Sahib.

Background:

• The Kartarpur shrine in Pakistan’s Narowal district across the river Ravi is where Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, spent his final days.
• The shrine is highly revered by the Sikh community.
• It is about 4 km from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur.
• The Kartarpur Corridor was first proposed in early 1999 by the prime ministers of Pakistan and India, Nawaz Sharif and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, respectively, as part of the Delhi–Lahore Bus diplomacy.
• In 2018, the foundation stone for the Kartarpur corridor was laid down on the Indian side. Two days later the foundation stone for the corridor was laid down on the Pakistani side. The corridor was initially intended to be completed before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in November 2019.
• The project is seen as a help in easing tensions between the two countries.
• Currently, pilgrims from India have to take a bus to Lahore to get to Kartarpur, which is a 125 km journey, despite the fact that people on the Indian side of the border can physically see Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur on the Pakistani side.
• An elevated platform has also been constructed for the same on the Indian side, where people use binoculars to get a good view.

Details:

• The agreement was reached at the second formal meeting held at Wagah.
• Every day, 5,000 pilgrims will be allowed to visit the Gurdwara on foot, both as individuals or in groups.
• Visa-free travel will be allowed for the Indian passport-holders and OCI card- holders
• India proposed that the holy shrine be open to Indian citizens of all faiths. However, a message from the government of Pakistan reiterated that there will be provision for a permit system for the pilgrims travelling through the religious corridor.
• Pakistan was cautioned against building an earth-filled embankment that could create flooding problems at Dera Baba Nanak inside India.
• India also urged Pakistan to allow ‘Nagar Kirtan’ from Delhi to Nankana Sahib in Pakistan in July and during October-November 2019 as part of the celebrations to mark the birth of the first Sikh Guru.

Context:

India must continue to push for Afghanistan elections, the former Afghanistan Ambassador to India and presidential contender Shaida Abdali has said.

Background:

• On July 10 and 11, the four-nation talks in Beijing agreed to step up efforts for an intra-Afghan dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan government in the next few weeks.
• It is being seen as the next step in the reconciliation process.
• The recent discussions were led by U.S. special envoy where he claimed that substantial progress had been made on issues like the intra-Afghan dialogue, Taliban guarantees on terrorism, withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and a possible ceasefire.
• However, there is still some uncertainty over whether Afghan presidential elections, scheduled at present for September 28, will go ahead as planned.
• The elections have already been postponed twice this year, and many of the 18 candidates are worried that a further postponement till next year will jeopardise the entire process.
• Another issue is over the constitutional validity of President Ghani’s government post-October, and the installation of an interim Afghan government in its place.

India’s Role:

• India has publicly cautioned against postponing presidential polls, and has shown hesitation about joining talks with the Taliban, given the group’s history as a terror group and its links with Pakistan.
• It is also not officially involved in any of the major regional multilateral conferences held for discussing Afghanistan’s future.

Details:

• “It is necessary that a good neighbour like India remain engaged on major international and regional conferences that deal with Afghanistan and the peace process. India must remain an active participant so as to ensure that we don’t reverse the gains of the last 18 years.”, Shaida Abdali said.
• The comment comes just as diplomats from the U.S., Russia China and Pakistan met in Beijing to discuss the peace process in Afghanistan.
• Mr. Abdali also appealed to the government to maintain its interest in Iran’s Chabahar port as an alternative route for India-Afghanistan trade, despite the U.S. sanctions.

Context:

The Law Ministry has initiated the process of setting up a law commission.

Background:

• The Law Commission of India is an executive body formed by an order of the government.
• Its chief mandate is to bring about reforms in the legal domain in the country. The commission is chiefly composed of legal experts.
• The Law Commission is formed for a fixed term.
• It functions as an advisory body to the Law and Justice Ministry.
• The first ever Law Commission was created in 1834 via the 1833 Charter Act, under the chairmanship of Macaulay.
• There were three more law commissions during the British Raj before independence.
• The Indian Contract Act, The Indian Code of Civil Procedure the Indian Evidence Act, the Transfer of Property Act. etc. are the outcomes of the first four Law Commissions.
• The Government of India established the First Law Commission of Independent India in 1955 and is reconstituted every three years.
• The recent one is the 21^stLaw Commission is in function and its tenure is from 2015 to 2018.

Details:

• The three-year term of the 21st Law Commission ended on August 31 last year.
• India is left without a law commission since September 2018.
  • The 21st commission, under Justice B.S. Chauhan (retd), had submitted reports and working papers on key issues such as simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and the Assemblies and a uniform civil code.
• In 2015, a proposal was mooted to make the law panel into a permanent body either through an Act of Parliament or an executive order (resolution of the Union Cabinet).
• The move was shelved after the Prime Minister’s Office felt that the present system should continue.

Law Commission:

• Law commission is the body which gives advice to the government on complex legal issues.
• The Cabinet approves reconstitution of the law panel for a period of three years.
• It is usually headed by a former Supreme Court judge or a former Chief Justice of a High Court.

C. GS3 Related

Category: ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

1. Speed restrictions and sound alerts mooted for protection of dolphins

Context:

The Botanical Survey of India has come up with the first comprehensive census of orchids of India putting the total number of orchid species or taxa to 1,256.

Classification of orchids:

Orchids have complex floral structure that facilitates biotic cross-pollination and makes them evolutionarily superior to the other plant groups. The entire orchid family is listed under appendix II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and hence any trade of wild orchid is banned globally.

Orchids are broadly categorised into three life forms:

1. Epiphytic – plants growing on another plants including those growing on rock boulders and often termed lithophyte. These are abundant up to 1800 m above the sea level and their occurrence decreases with the increase in altitude.
2. Terrestrial – plants growing on land and climbers. They grow directly on soil, are found in large numbers in temperate and alpine region.
3. Mycoheterotrophic – plants which derive nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi that are attached to the roots of a vascular plant. About 60% of all orchids found in India, which is 757 species, are epiphytic, 447 are terrestrial and 43 are mycoheterotrophic. They are mostly associated with ectomycorrhizal fungi, are found in temperate regions, or are found growing with parasites in tropical regions.

Details:

• A State-wise distribution of orchid species point out that the Himalayas, North-East parts of the country and Western Ghats are the hot-spots of orchid plants.
• The highest number of orchid species is recorded from Arunachal Pradesh with 612 species, followed by Sikkim 560 species and West Bengal.
• Darjeeling Himalayas have also high species concentration, with 479 species.
• While north-east India rank at the top in species concentration, the Western Ghats have high endemism of orchids.
• There are 388 species of orchids, which are endemic to India of which about one-third (128) endemic species are found in Western Ghats.
• The publication points out that Kerala has 111 of these endemic species while Tamil Nadu has 92.
• Among the 10 bio geographic zones of India, the Himalayan zone is the richest in terms of orchid species followed by Northeast, Western Ghats, Deccan plateau and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Context:

The Karnataka Speaker has been asked not to decide the issue of MLAs’ resignation or disqualification, by the Supreme Court.

Details:

• An order has been passed when one of the questions to be decided is whether the court can give such a direction to the Speaker.
• It now is revealed that legislators can be prevented from resigning by claiming that they have incurred disqualification.
• It was argued in court that “the rebel MLAs are trying to avoid disqualification by tendering resignations.”
• This is shocking, as the penalty for defection is loss of legislative office.
• Quitting the current post before joining another party is a legal and moral obligation.
• Defection is condemnable, especially if it is to bring down one regime and form another. But politicians cannot be tied down to parties against their will by not letting them leave even their legislative positions.
• Converting resignation into a disqualification matter is an attempt to deny a member’s right to quit his seat in the legislature before joining another party, even if the crossing-over is a politically expedient measure.
• A disqualified member cannot become a Minister without getting elected again, whereas one who resigns can be inducted into an alternative Cabinet without being a member.

Concerns:

• The on-going proceedings represent an increasingly common trend in litigation on constitutional issues: the propensity of the political class to twist and stretch the law in their favour and leave it to the court to set things right.
• The Speaker already enjoys extraordinary powers under the Constitution.
• In addition to immunity from judicial scrutiny for legislative matters, such as whether a Bill is a money bill, presiding officers get to decide whether a member has incurred disqualification under the anti-defection law.
• Though the decision is subject to judicial review, many Speakers have evaded judicial scrutiny by merely not acting on disqualification matters.
• The question whether the Speaker’s inaction can be challenged in court is pending before another Constitution Bench.
• Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have instances of Speakers not acting on disqualification questions for years. The current crisis (Converting resignation into a disqualification matter) in Karnataka has exposed a new dimension to a political crisis.
• Accepting a resignation is a simple function of being satisfied if it is voluntary, while disqualification is decided on evidence and inquiry. The two should not be mixed up.

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Looming Challenges to India’s Standing – On India’s Foreign Policy

Q1) Consider the following statements:

Q2) Attappadi Reserve Forest is located in:

Q3) Consider the following statements:

Q4) Consider the following statements: