Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
- GS PAPER 1
- Oppression’s new face {Society}
- GS PAPER 2
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SC allows rape victim to abort 24-week-old foetus {Law and Policy}
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- GS PAPER 3
GS PAPER 1
[1] Oppression’s new face
Context
Atrocities against the dalits have become a big problem in the recent time. The problem does not seem to halt.
Analysis
There are 3 new dimensions now added to the existing atrocity against the dalits through an incident happened in Gujarat.
- The dalits from tanner groups has been accused of slaughtering cows and also beaten up by gaurakshaks brutally. The cow watchman’s have also forced a Muslim to beat the Dalits in order to prove that Muslims are also in favor of anti-beef.
- Unlike in the past, where the atrocities was mainly related to economic issues related to land, wages, water, housing and/or untouchability, this time, the main issue was a refusal of the Dalits to follow the neo-Brahminical practices created by Hindutva leaders. The Hindutva leaders tell people what to eat, drink, dress and monitor their behaviour. Gaurakshaks are demanding that the cow should be declared rashtramata, a complete ban should put on the sale of beef across the country and have been asking tanners to give up their jobs.
- Third, the protest against the incident and demand for justice by the Dalits have not seen done before. In Gujarat, Dalits have attempted suicide to show their anger and get the right justice. This is pointing at their helplessness. Also, for the first time in recent times, along with the Dalit castes, many OBCs, Muslims, and human right groups have joined the protest.
Some facts and incidents
The state government has only been ignoring Dalit problems, or for that matter, the problems of the underprivileged communities.
- The existence and nature of untouchability in different spheres in rural Gujarat has not reduced significantly since the formation of the state. In fact, the practice has been spreaded over Primary schools, drinking water facilities and public transports now.
- On an average, more than a 1000 cases are incidents reported on atrocities against scheduled castes in a year.
- The terror against Dalits, and the government’s indifference to it, has resulted into the mass exit of people from such communities.
- The implementation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is poor in the state.
- Even the justice is not available to dalits, Public prosecutors — both at the higher and lower courts — are purposely hostile to the Dalits.
- The government’s casual attitude is evident from the fact that it has not followed the rules of the act which require that cases under its purview be investigated by an officer, not above the rank of deputy superintendent of police.
Conclusion
This is not only a shame for the state of Gujarat but also puts India as a whole in poor light. Time has come to change the outlook towards dalits and other such communities. Laws for their betterment must be compulsorily imposed and constant monitoring of their well being should be put in place.
GS PAPER 2
[1] SC allows rape victim to abort 24-week-old foetus
Context:
The Supreme Court on Monday has allowed a petitioner rape victim (after she challenged Section 3 (2) (b) of the 1971 Act), to medically terminate her 24 week pregnancy due to the abnormalities in her foetus has been found and confirmed by the Medical Board.
The Centre has clarified that a 20-week cap on termination of pregnancy will not be applicable in case the life of the woman is found to be in danger. Hence there will not be any time limit for conducting an abortion in case the woman is in danger.
Analysis:
- Section 3 (2) (b) of the 1971 Act, allows abortion within the limit of 20 weeks old pregnancy with the advice of at least two registered medical practitioners, who should confirm that the pregnant woman is in danger or there was a danger of the child being born with severe mental or physical handicap.
- In 2009, 97% of the countries has permitted abortion to save woman’s life including few specific restrictions. Majority of the developed countries have allowed abortion due to economic or social reasons, whereas only few of the developing countries(19%) have done the same.
- India and Japan are among 13 countries which considers widers exceptions as reason including socioeconomic factors like woman’s age or income.
- Among all countries, US, Canada, China, Singapore and Netherlands have the lengthiest time of gestation period.
GS PAPER 3
Poverty and inequality after reforms {Economy – Paper III}
Context
Economic reforms which began in 1991, have not only lead to an increase in GDP but there are also many other parameters which saw improvement due to these reforms. Poverty and inequality are two such measures which need to be considered to see how reforms have turned out for India.
Decline in poverty
There are two trends in declining of poverty :
- Poverty declined by 1.36% per annum after 1991 reforms, before 1991 this figure of decline was just 0.44% per annum. This rapid decline is attributed more to urban growth than rural growth.
- Even during the post reform period, poverty declined more in 2000s than in 1990s. Tendulkar committee estimates on poverty show that from 1993-94 to 2004-05, poverty declined by just 0.74% per annum, whereas in the period from 2004-05 to 2011-12, it declined by 2.2% per annum.In 2000s there was a rapid decline in poverty also amongst the SC/STs.
- Higher economic growth, agriculture growth, rural non-farm employment, increase in real wages for rural labourers, employment in construction and programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) contributed to higher poverty reduction in the 2000s.
Inequality during reform period
- During the post reform period, inequality has actually increased in India.
- The Gini coefficient on consumption as well as income shows increase in inequality during the post reform period.
- Even in the non-income indicators like health and education, inequalities between the rich and poor are glaring.
So considering poverty and inequality, it is clear that while poverty reduced, inequality has increased. But still after decline poverty is much higher in India. So steps must be taken to address both poverty and inequality.
Way ahead
- To reduce poverty, agriculture must be diversified as growth in agriculture leads to twice the decline in poverty than other sectors. Also, employment must be created in manufacturing and service. Steps like MUDRA, Make in India are a right step in this direction.
- For reducing inequality, instead of imposing higher taxes on rich, tax base should be widened. Fiscal instruments like public investment in physical and social infrastructure can be used to reduce inequality.
Conclusion
All in all economic reforms should focus more on efficient delivery systems of public services. Poor governance is the biggest constraint in reduction in poverty and inequality. A major institutional challenge is the accountability of service providers, particularly the public sector, which should also be addressed simultaneously.
[2] U.S. asks India to remove duties, ‘barriers’ on ICT items
Context
The U.S has urged India to remove custom duties on Information and Communication Technology products.
Analysis
- More customs duties by India on ICT products means the import of such products becomes costly, hence the exports which the U.S makes to India are affected.
- Apart from removing custom duties, U.S has also asked India to do away with the requirement wherein even the imported ICT products have to be tested at Bureau of International Standards (BIS) approved labs before selling them. This process is referred to as compulsory registration (CR)
- U.S also impinged upon better collaboration between India and U.S on WTO’s Trade facilitation agreement (TFA) on goods to ensure free flow of ICT products.
- These demands by the U.S come ahead of the bilateral Strategic and Commercial Dialogue scheduled for next month.
[3] Flawed premise, misplaced prescription
Context
India is planning to implement the monetary policy framework very soon. The very same policy has been adopted by many developing countries, would it have the same effect for India too?
Introduction
In the advanced capitalist countries, the professional consensus has moved towards inflation targeting as the objective of monetary policy.
Targeting inflation comes from a belief that policy should be simple and transparent, so that the private sector can factor this into their decision-making.
How we are different to developed countries?
There are difference between India and these developing countries, like there is no restriction on the movement of (financial) capital and no issue of balance of payments in the developed countries.
Macroeconomic distinction between a developed and a developing economy is that the latter needs to settle its debt in an internationally accepted currency.
As foreign lenders do not accept Rupee, developing economy like India also needs to have some notion of external balance.
We always have to worry about BoP unlike western countries, we had two major balance of payments crises.
Sterilised intervention
When capital inflows occur, the RBI could do nothing and let the rupee appreciate. If it chooses to intervene, it could buy foreign exchange. This would increase the supply of money, and possibly cause inflation. So it may buy back the rupees by offering government bonds. This is “sterilised intervention” — sterilised because the policy leaves money supply unchanged.
This all process needs attention to the details of the external sector.
Nature of external constraint is not limited to sterilised intervention, If a country is able to control budget deficit and inflation both, there is no guarantee that it is going to perform well. This is what happened to Latin America after Russia defaulted in 1998.
More problems
In India it is not the only example of adopting foreign concepts without giving it any thinking.
In an economy like India’s, monetary policy have nothing to say directly on supply shocks, for example, a failure of the monsoon or a rise in oil prices.
After a failed monsoon, and high food prices that have led people to expect high prices, policy would increase interest rates and have a prolonged period of demand compression from a one-off monsoon failure.
Exchange rate interventions
East Asia has grown out of poverty by using the exchange rate as a tool to generate demand for domestic goods.
As India’s trade balance has been in deficit (around 8 per cent of GDP till recently), a depreciated exchange rate could surely claw back some of this demand by making Indian products slightly more competitive in world markets.
Similarly, if oil prices were to rise, one way of minimising the inflationary impact of that is to let the exchange rate appreciate.
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