A brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
National
[1]. A juvenile act/ A juvenile rush to justice
Context:-
Criticising the juvenile justice act (JJA) and its impact on Juveniles.
Effect of Strict laws on Juveniles:-
Depriving children of their liberty can lead to long-term and costly psychological and physical damage.
Overcrowding and poor detention conditions threaten their development, health and well-being.
The removal of children from networks as well as from educational or vocational opportunities at critical and formative periods in their lives can compound social and economic disadvantage and marginalisation.
Exposure to criminal influences and violent behaviour in detention, and in the worst instances, exposure to adult offenders, is likely to encourage repeat offending.
The real issue:-
The real issue with juvenile law in India is less about the law and more about its implementation. The JJA will also fail if the boards that it recommends are not created or are staffed without adequate competence.
For instance, juvenile justice boards will decide whether an under-18 accused is to be tried as an adult or a child.
But how will these boards be set up? How will you prevent arbitrary functioning?
Contradicting laws:-
There is no word also on the contradiction between raising the age of consent while lowering the age of delinquency.
The contradiction is that even though people under 18 are children with no capacity for sexual autonomy, they could be tried as adults for rape should they have consensual sex with under-18 girlfriends.
Insensitive education:-
Studies show that an overwhelming majority—86%—of all rapists are men known to survivors, and that they include fathers, brothers, neighbours and teachers.
And it is sad that we don’t want to include consent, sexuality and respect in our school and college curriculums.
Conclusion:-
The cornerstone of juvenile justice is reform not retribution. And one of the tests of a civilized society lies in the way we treat the worst amongst us.
The role of Parliament in this context is to be a deliberative body, not an echo chamber.
[2]. Modi Vows to Unveil Startup India Project Details in Jan
Prime Minister has promised to unveil details about the the Startup India, Standup India project in January.
All IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management), IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), central universities, NITs (National Institutes of Technology) will be joined with this programmes through live connectivity
He also added that a startup is not necessarily associated solely with the digital or IT world.
Start-up India, Stand-up India, should not be limited to certain cities it should spread to all corners of the country
The most important element in the framework is to make it easy for startups to set up their business.
Economic Digest
[1]. States can levy tax on petroleum products
What has happened?
The government has proposed a win-win model to address the issue of including petroleum products in the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) list.
How will it be done?
The states can levy the Value Added tax (VAT) for a certain period.
Constitutionally petroleum products will be part of GST, but for a certain period, the states will have the freedom to determine the tax rate.
[2]. SICA…Sarfaesi…NCLT
Context:-
The article discusses the need for the proposed Bankruptcy law as studies are indicating more defaults over the year.
Previous laws:-
Various governments have come up with various solutions, from the Sick Industrial Companies Act (SICA) of 1985 to the Recovery of Debt Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act of 1993, the Sarfaesi Act of 2002 and a revamped Companies Act of 2013.
It takes BIFR around 5 years to decide on winding up a firm and more than 7 to decide on a rehabilitation scheme; oddly, while BIFR adjudicates on the viability of a firm, the high courts supervise liquidation.
Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code:-
It seeks to resolve by consolidating all laws and make one body—the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for firms and Debt Recovery Tribunals for individuals.
It is responsible for resolution of insolvency, liquidation and bankruptcy.
While a time limit of 180 days has been fixed for deciding on cases, the most important change is that no civil courts will have any jurisdiction on the issue and, if there is any appeal against the order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal—It will be directly to the Supreme Court, and only on a question of law.
With the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the NCLT, the challenge is to build up the NCLT and its benches across the country.
Editorials & Opinions
[1]. The map of neighbourly outreach
Context:-
Prime minister’s Pakistan visit has unfolded into of a new era of diplomacy between India and Pakistan.
Initial Freeze:-
In August 2014, Foreign Secretary-level talks were called off after the Pakistani High Commissioner met Kashmiri separatists; the same excuse was given a year later to call off National Security Adviser (NSA)-level talks in New Delhi.
Militant infiltration and the occasional provocation from across the border have long been the routine.
Terrorism and Pakistan:-
After New Delhi messed up its Kashmir policy Kashmir insurgency of the past three decades acquired sophistication, weapons and manpower from the remnants of the Afghan terrorists.
The world got its new generation of terrorists and their broader ideology. From New York City’s World Trade Center complex to Paris’s Bataclan theatre, from Mumbai’s streets to the many bombed markets across India, the signatures of violence nurtured by sections of the Pakistani establishment and flourishing under its guidance cannot be ignored.
India’s strategy:-
The engagement with Pakistan is driven the fact that India’s economic growth, including its ability to keep government expenses under check, enjoy global market trust and attract investment, is all critically hinged on a peaceful South Asia. No other reason is needed to appreciate why India will have to keep talking to Pakistan.
[2]. Green shoots of a possibility
Context:-
The notion that political parties are not sensitive to climate changes and the growing development and environment divide has led to the rise of green parties
What are green parties?
A political party with ecological wisdom and participative democracy as its roots.
Oldest green party:-
The German Green Party (now called Alliance ’90/The Greens), established in 1980, is one of the oldest and most prominent of these groupings.
Need for green parties:-
There is a crying need for environmental politics as our flawed economic developmental model has left a trail of shattered homes.
The near-term viability of such parties is still questionable, as many of the current discussions around environmental issues and green politics are restricted to the now and here.
The new-found sensitivity to environmental issues is more of a knee-jerk emotional response and is short lived.
But we have to consider such unique features of our democracy into account while coming up with a political response to new social mores.
Will western model work in India?
These unique challenges, make the strategy of the green parties in the West seems inappropriate in the Indian social milieu.
Hence we should not try to ape the Western model.
There, the environmental concerns are the concerns of the urbane and the educated. In India, the environmental concerns revolve around necessities. They are the concerns of the rural poor, the Adivasis, the fishermen, the tribals and even the urban castaways.
If green politics does not restrict itself as urban environmental activism but emerges as a binding agent of all these groups and concerns, it definitely has a future in India.”
Conclusion:-
We need fresh infusion [of people] and fresh formations which can act as the political and ecological conscience of society.
Conventional mainstream political parties may eventually wake up to the ground realities and may add elements of sustainable development and environmentalism to their agenda.
It is not as if there are no lessons that we can learn from the green parties of the West as the things we fight against are same.
Thus green parties in India are just a seed of an idea, but an idea that holds a lot of promise.
[3]. Engineering regression
Context:-
Government is trying to cap the fees in unaided private-sector technical institutes when there are significant gaps in higher education.
The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has accepted the recommendations of a 10-member panel headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice BN Srikrishna on fixing ranges for maximum fees that can be charged by a private institute for various technical disciplines, including engineering and MBA.
Private sector will be hurt:-
This will hurt the private sector which will find it difficult to carry on functioning.
Even though the government has significantly increased public spending on higher education, including technical education, it is nowhere near enough to bridge the supply gap—the private sector accounted for a whopping 59% of tertiary level enrolments in 2011-12.
Moreover, such a move impairs the chances of foreign universities—after the relevant Bill is passed—being interested in setting up campuses here.
It would be really unfortunate if, just when India needs more quality institutes of learning, populist government policy prevents them from coming up—in the long-run, the biggest sufferers will be the very same students.
[4]. Fudging the debate on net neutrality
Context:-
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) issued its “Consultative Document on Differential Pricing for Data Services”.
The Trai has yet to complete this consultative process and make recommendations to the government on a similar issue which it had raised earlier.
New consultation:-
It seeks views on whether telecom operators must be allowed to provide subsidised or free access to some websites or services. a practice called “zero-rating” in the context of net neutrality regulation.
Trai’s new document conspicuously avoids familiar terminology including net neutrality, paid prioritisation or zero-rating.
The new document is also largely devoid of any relevant data.
Around the world:-
Few countries see the zero-rating in binary yes/no terms.
Over 90% of countries have no rules in place for zero-rating.
There is significant difference between the dozen-odd countries that do have some rules in place to deal with net neutrality or zero rating.
The US, for example, has a net neutrality law in place, but does not ban zero-rating outright.
It will treat each type of zero-rating on a case by case by basis. In the circumstances, it is odd that India is undertaking a separate consultation, almost entirely focused on zero-rating and yet with virtually no discussion of its own many facets.
by: ForumIAS Editorial Team
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