Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
- GS PAPER 2
- Sexual harassment law likely to be amended {Polity}
- Connecting Asia {Foreign Policy}
- Husband, in-laws can be tried for cruelty-driven suicides: SC {Polity}
- Saudi plan to tax expats creates unease {Foreign Policy}
- GS PAPER 3
GS PAPER 2
[1] Sexual harassment law likely to be amended
Context
- The Centre is considering an amendment to the rules on dealing with sexual harassment.
Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act
- It seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at their place of work.
- This statute superseded the Vishakha Guidelines for prevention of sexual harassment introduced by the Supreme Court of India.
Key provisions of this Act
- The Act defines sexual harassment at the work place and creates a mechanism for redressal of complaints. It also provides safeguards against false or malicious charges.
- Every employer is required to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee at each office or branch with 10 or more employees.
- The District Officer is required to constitute a Local Complaints Committee at each district, and if required at the block level.
- The Committee is required to complete the inquiry within a time period of 90 days.
- On completion of the inquiry, the report will be sent to the employer or the District Officer, as the case may be, they are mandated to take action on the report within 60 days.
- The definition of “aggrieved woman”, who will get protection under the Act is extremely wide to cover all women, irrespective of her age or employment status, whether in the organised or unorganised sectors, public or private and covers clients, customers and domestic workers as well.
Amendment under consideration
- The amendment seeks to make the committee on sexual harassment share its findings with the complainant in cases where no action is recommended or contemplated against the accused.
[2] Connecting Asia
Issue
- Limited scope of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)
- SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organisation which includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
- India and Pakistan have been observing member, but this year both will become the functional member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
- SCO which was confined to Central and East Asia, will now have South Asia in its region as well.
Limited Scope
- Despite being a reservoir of abundant energy and mineral resources, the SCO has not been able to develop a constructive economic agenda.
- Though in 2006, Russia vouched for Energy cooperation and China proposed a SCO development bank in 2010,but both the ideas has remained dormant.
- And most energy cooperation between the SCO members are taking place bilaterally.eg:- China-Central Asia gas pipeline.
- The reason given for this lack of cooperation or common agenda is because of complicated dynamics between China and Russia. Both have restrained to provide any bandwidth to each other.
- It is hoped that India can do the balancing act between both these countries.
India-Pakistan relations at the SCO
- It is expected that unlike SAARC, which has become non-functional because of India-Pakistan complex relationships, SCO will not get much affected.
- It is because the rest of the members, particularly the Central Asian countries, are likely to maintain considerable distance from the Indo-Pak bilateral domain.
SCO and One-Belt-One-Road (OBOR)
- China would like to make SCO as an anchor to gather support for its ambitious infrastructure connectivity plan One-Belt-One-Road (OBOR) for connecting Asia and Europe through land and sea.
- In this regard, India might be on weaker turf, as it has shown indifference towards OBOR.
- The long-term objective of China is to link its regional projects (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) projects into OBOR.
- It is already working on connecting its western region to Central Asia through projects that are exclusive of the SCO.
How should India approach towards SCO in such a scenario?
- Having a totally non-committal attitude to the OBOR is not the right way to approach an initiative that is slowing spreading deep and wide across Asia and is becoming bigger than all other ongoing regional connectivity plans.
- Much of what India might gain from the SCO will depend on its own calculations of the OBOR.
[3]Husband, in-laws can be tried for cruelty-driven suicides: SC
Context
Supreme Court of India has ruled that if it is proved that the wilful cruelty has lead to the suicide of a woman in dowry harassment case, the court can presume the abetment of her husband and in-laws in such a case.
Analysis
Under section 498A of the IPC, if it is proved that cruelty lead to the death of a woman it would be assumed that act of cruelty has been done by the husband and in laws of the woman. It would only be in rare cases that the courts might not presume the abetment.
Once the wilful cruelty is proved under Section 498A of IPC. No separate case can be initiated to prove that it was actually the husband and in-laws who have done the act of cruelty.
Bearing of the ruling
Also, instance where husband and in laws claim that the death was not because of their cruelty but because the woman was upset, depressed or any other trivial claim will not be entertained.
[4]Saudi plan to tax expats creates unease
Context
- Saudi government is studying a proposal to tax foreign workers so as to compensate for the falling oil revenues.
- This has raise alarm amidst the expatriates in Saudi Arabia.
Analysis
- Almost 1/3rd of the population of Saudi Arabia comprises of foreigners who chose to leave their own country and work in Saudi Arabia because of higher salaries and no tax obligations. They have been ignoring the social restrictions imposed by the country because of the lure of high income.
- In this case such a proposal (even if there is no formal announcement made by the govt) which aims at taxing foreigners is bound to create discontent among them.
- Also, there is no information whether it would cover all professions and all income levels.
Why such a move by Saudi Arabia
- Saudi is an oil rich country and a lion share of its revenue has in the past come from selling the oil. However, in the current scenario oil prices have seen a steep fall which has affected Saudi Arabia immensely. To make up for this shortfall in revenue, such a proposal is being considered.
- Taxing the foreigners means increasing the cost of foreign workers by the employers. This would make the employers choose locals rather than foreigners for the same jobs. This is what the Saudi Arabia govt has been trying for long. To make its local population shift to private enterprises.
Conclusion
The move to tax foreigners if finalized by the Saudi Government will send a wave of negative sentiment throughout the expatriate community in the country. This will not only affect the foreigners but also the employers since their costs of retaining the foreign workers would rise and it is not possible to quickly transition such a large foreign workforce by local workforce.
GS PAPER 3
[1]Govt. denies nod for Google’s Street View
What is Google’s Street View?
- Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from positions along many streets in the world.
- It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expanded to include cities and rural areas worldwide.
- Most photography is done by car, but some is done by trekker, tricycle, walking, boat, snowmobile, and underwater apparatus.
- The service has been hugely successful but has caused problems of privacy in some countries.
Why India has opposed it?
- India has rejected Google’s plans to collect images for its Street View service in the country after objections from security agencies.
- The main concern was security of sensitive defence installations.
- It was not possible to monitor the service once it was launched and it would be detrimental to national security
[2] UN plans to end AIDS threat by 2030
Context
- United Nations General Assembly has held a meeting in which member states have adopted a new political declaration, including time-bound global targets, to be reached over the next five years and end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.
- This ambitious target is within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Five-point strategy given by India at the meeting to end AIDS
- Adoption of the fast-track target
- Reaching 90 per cent of all people in need with HIV treatment
- Commitment to maintain the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) flexibilities, so that India can provide generic medicines for HIV treatment.
- Creating an inclusive society with programmes that work towards restoring the respect and dignity of individuals
- Global solidarity.The world needs to be united in this endeavour and developed countries should contribute more than what they are currently doing.
Contribution of India in the global fight against AIDS epidemic
- India is a leading contributor as it provides affordable medicines for HIV treatment for domestic and global patients, especially in African countries.
- More than 80 per cent of the antiretroviral drugs, used globally, are supplied by the Indian pharmaceutical industry.
[3] Rajan calls for global coordination to tackle spill-over economic effects
Context
Raghuram Rajan (RBI Governor) has urged for a better coordination among the countries so as to better tackle the impact that the economic policies of some countries have over other.
Understanding the spillover effect
Let us first understand what the spillover effect is.
- Some countries have been following extremely low monetary policies which means that the rate of interests in those countries are very low. The citizens in those countries have easy access to money , they borrow and invest in their own countries. This has a huge impact on emerging economies since the people who would have otherwise invested in these economies are now investing in their own country.
- When these monetary policy changes happen quickly without any coordination between countries, it leads becomes really difficult for emerging economies because in a short span of time they see money entering and leaving their country.
- It also becomes very difficult for the emerging economies to calibrate their own monetary policies in such a situation.
The same thing happened with India when US after following the trend of quantitative easing for quite some time, immediately decided to shift to tapering.
Conclusion
There is a crying need for cooperation between the countries especially when it comes to the monetary policies. One way to do this is by using the platform of various international forums such as G-20, G-7, G-15 to have a dialogue on policies.
[4] India needs a weaker exchange rate
Context
Over the past few year, rupee has become stable which means that it is stronger when compared to currencies of the other countries. This ,although is a good thing to have happened in the economy but there are also a few drawbacks.
Why a stronger rupee maybe a cause of concern?
A strong rupee means that importing countries have to pay more to India as compared to what they pay to the other countries (whose currencies have fallen). This leads to India losing its global competitiveness in comparison to the other countries.
What is a fair rupee value and effects of strong rupee?
- Many experts feel that Indian rupee is overvalued by 7% to 8% when compared to dollar. In 2016-17, a fair value of 1$ = 75- 76 rs is desirable.
- This depreciation might appear to be alarming but considering India’s global competitiveness, it is good.
- Also, a stronger rupee means that our imports will increase (since imports become cheaper). This will affect India’s local manufacturing. This is already happening in steel and chemicals sector.
- Not only manufacturing but agriculture sector is also affected since the price of the agriculture commodities becomes uncompetitive and govt has to resort to import duties.
Weak rupee is better than having high trade barriers
- What currently India is doing is that in order to offset the effects of high rupee value, it is imposing high tariff barriers to make up for it.
- This simply means that India is imposing high taxes on imports and slashing export duties. This has become a cause of worry in WTO and is also not in line with the globalization that is happening day after day.
- A weaker rupee will have the same effect like that of a tariff barrier without causing any concerns in WTO or other international forums.
- Weak rupee will not only increase export competitiveness but will also boost local manufacturing.
Is there a trade-off?
Yes, there is a trade off here.
- A weak rupee might put pressure on inflation. This will happen because commodities such as coal, oil etc will become a costly import and since these are used in almost every industry , the prices will shoot up.
- But this is where the role of RBI comes up. It is upto the central bank to ensure that the inflation is kept in check
Conclusion
India needs to come up with a misconception that a strong rupee is a matter of pride and a falling rupee is a matter of shame. We need to focus on the advantages of the both and take pride in the outcomes. As of now, a weak currency might solve a lot of problems for the Indian economy.
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