Gist of EPW April Week 4, 2023

The Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) is an important source of study material for IAS, especially for the current affairs segment. In this section, we give you the gist of the EPW magazine every week. The important topics covered in the weekly are analysed and explained in a simple language, all from a UPSC perspective.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. A Travesty of Justice
2. Social Welfare Laws and Federalism
3. Gender Budget
4. Dehing Patkai National Park
5. Cross-border Trade and Economic Development in the Border States of India

1. A Travesty of Justice

Details

• One of the major challenges in India is the limited capacity to deliver justice.
• This has particularly impacted the poor and the marginalized sections of the society.
• It is argued that the major reason for poor justice scenario is that the institutions to ensure legal accountability are weak and have scanty resources.

Also read: Indian Judiciary 

Impact of Poor Justice System

The poor justice system results in:

• The unchecked growth of violence in the country.
• Human Rights violations.
• Increasing cases of social and sexual harassment.
• The emergence of vigilante groups and kangaroo courts.
• Damaging productive activities and undermining the economy.
• Increasing corruption.
• Derailing inclusive growth.
• Diverting limited resources into unproductive and illegal activities.

Indian Justice Report 2022

• Indian Justice Report 2022 is the third report in the series. It analyzes various aspects of the justice delivery system such as police, judiciary, prisons, and access to legal aid both at the state and national level.
• It stated that the size of the police force increased by around one-fifth to 21 lakhs over the last decade. 
• Similarly, the per capita spending on the police force increased by almost threefold.
• The vacancy against the sanctioned strength in the police force is still high. For instance, there is only one police personnel for 835 people or 120 personnel for every one lakh of the population.
• The number of police personnel in India is half the figure recommended by the United Nations.
• There is also the existence of regional disparity in both the vacancy and per capita expenditure on the police force. For instance,
  • The vacancy in the police force at the national level is one-fifth of the total strength. It is 44% in West Bengal, whereas in Kerala it is only 5%.
  • Similarly, in terms of spending on the police force, it ranged from a low of `641 in Bihar to a high of `2,055 in Punjab.
• The number of prison inmates in 2021 was 5.5 lakh. 
• It should be noted that the occupancy rates, as a percentage of the prison capacities, have now gone up to 130% nationally.
  • In states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (UP), and Delhi, it ranges from 150 to 185%.
  • Similarly, the share of undertrials varied from 5% in Andhra Pradesh (AP) to 28% in Rajasthan.
  • The number of inmates per prison staff varied from 4 in Kerala to 24 in Jharkhand.
• The vacancies in the Judiciary of different states (as on November 1, 2021) are as follows:

Source: prsindia.org

• The pendency in the Indian judiciary as per the Indian Justice Report 2022 is summed up as:

Source: The Hindu

• The report suggests that the top six states in the overall ranking of large and mid-sized states are Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat, AP, and Kerala.
• Whereas, the worst performing states (in descending order) are Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Bihar, West Bengal, and UP.

Conclusion:

The need of the hour is an urgent reform of the justice administering institutions and allocation of adequate resources. This would ensure an equitable and efficient framework in dispensing justice.

2. Social Welfare Laws and Federalism

Context: Better participation of the state government in the implementation of rights-based policy can yield better results.  

What is the rights-based approach to welfare schemes?

• The human rights-based approach focuses on those who are most marginalised, excluded or discriminated against. 
  • This often requires an analysis of gender norms, different forms of discrimination and power imbalances to ensure that interventions reach the most marginalised segments of the population.
• A human rights-based approach also seeks to reinforce the capacities of duty-bearers (usually governments) to respect, protect and guarantee these rights.
  • It aims to address development complexities holistically, taking into consideration the connections between individuals and the systems of power or influence. And it endeavours to create dynamics of accountability.
• The rights-based approach deals not just with outcomes but also with how those outcomes are achieved. It recognizes that people are actors in their own development, rather than passive recipients of services. Informing, educating and empowering them is essential. 

Legislation that aims to meet the social goals: 

• The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act (HSAA), 2006 which granted coparcenary rights to daughters of Hindu landowners, at par with their brothers.  
• Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (FRA), 2006 relied on the state and local authorities for effective implementation of the law. 
• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RCFCE) Act, 2009 requires both the union and states to work in parallel to implement the legislation within their respective fields.

Issues with the above legislation: 

• The FRA was passed in 2006 with the intention of fully realising the rights of the Adivasis to forests—both the material and the cultural aspects.
  • Section 6: provides for the authorities who will take a decision on whether forest rights are to be granted or not, and very little detail is provided on how a claimant is supposed to show that they are entitled to forest rights.
  • In most cases, this provision has resulted in the eviction of the claimants from their lands. 
  • The law has little or no guidance for gram sabhas and state governments on the appropriate mechanism for the implementation of the law. States have used vastly different methodologies to grant forest rights resulting in widely different levels of forest claims being accepted or rejected, leaving many in limbo about their status.
• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RCFCE) Act, 2009 intends to fulfil the constitutional guarantee of free education to all children between the ages of 6–14 years. 
  • The RCFCE Act, among other things, also required private, non-aided schools to admit at least 25% of students from the neighbourhood, belonging to disadvantaged sections of society.
    • However, implementation of this provision has remained ineffective as many of the states find loopholes in the law to avoid enforcement of the provision. 
    • The law is more focused on the peripheral areas like infrastructure, instead of enabling the system to provide for the enrollment of the disadvantaged section of the society in the educational institutions. 

Proper coordination between the centre and the state governments is cardinal for the implementation of these laws. For the success of the government schemes, a lot of emphasis should be laid on the programme implementation. Additionally, the law must be drafted after taking differences across the states into account. The idea of one size fits all must be avoided. 

3. Gender Budget

What is gender budgeting?

• Gender budgeting is an application of gender mainstreaming in the budgetary process. It involves conducting a gender-based assessment of budgets, incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process, and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to promote gender equality.
• Gender budgeting is an important public governance tool that governments can use to assess how budget decisions impact gender equality.
  • The goal of gender budgeting is to bring equality by meticulously utilising the available resources, techniques, and procedures of the budget cycle.
• The gender budget in India is divided into two broad sections. 
  • Reflects women-specific schemes, which means those schemes that have 100% allocation for women. 
  • Reflects pro-women schemes, which means those schemes where at least 30% of the allocation is for women.

Image: Percentage of gender budgeting

Source: EP&W

Allocations: Gender Budget 2023–24

• For the current financial year 2023–24, 36 ministries and departments have been allocated a budget of Rs 2,23,219.75 crore by the government under the gender budget, which accounts for just 4.95% of the total union budget, an increase from the 2022–23 accounting for 4.33%. 
• In the Union Budget 2023–24, the Finance Minister made an announcement that women can deposit up to 2 lakh for a two-year period at a fixed interest rate of 7.5% with the Mahila Samman Bachat Patra, which will be available until March 2025. 
  • This scheme is aimed to cultivate saving habits among women. However, in this scheme, the lower limit of the deposit is not defined and also the tax structure of this scheme is not known. 
  • The target group of this scheme is middle-class women who might not have sufficient or surplus income out of which savings up to Rs 2 lakh for a two-year period may be generated. 

Limitations of the schemes

• The allocation done under different schemes in previous gender budgets has not been fully utilised.
  • For instance, 3,109.11 crore were allocated for Mission Shakti under its two main schemes, SAMBAL and SAMARTHYA of gender budget in 2022–23, whereas the total expenditure is recorded only for 2,244.93 crore for that year.
  • The Ministry of Women and Child Development had spent only Rs 2,499.04 crore again­st the funds received of Rs 3,343.85 crore in 2022–23.
• Many studies on financial literacy show that Indian women often do not manage their finances independently. 
  • Their finances are managed by their husbands who open bank accounts in the name of their wives and reap benefits thereafter. 
  • For women to benefit from this programme, they also need to have access to sufficient money and employment prospects. 

Measures required: 

• Curb the problem of underutilisation of available funds by addressing and resolving systemic inadequacies. 
• Each ministry and department should prepare a road map outlining how they aim to address gender-specific needs before going for budgetary allocations. 
• GoI should now focus on the implementation of Targeted Gender Budgeting (TGB) which could lead to better results. 
• Inequality of access to resources is one of the primary reasons for women’s oppression and underdevelopment. 
  • Hence resource allocation, at every level, needs a gender-sensitive approach. In the process of planning, TGB may be used as an assertive feminist strategy with the main objective of reshaping the public distribution of resources, with the aim of securing parity between men and women.

Proper utilisation of the government fund and dedicated instrument to measure its implementation lies at the heart of making gender equality a fruitful exercise. 

4. Dehing Patkai National Park

Context: Assam witnessed an unprecedented social media protest in mid-2020 for the protection of the Dehing Patkai rainforest located in the eastern part of the state.

Details: 

• The Government of Assam declared Dehing Patkai, with an area of 231.65 square kilometres of land, as the seventh national park of the state. 
  • The rainforest is a part of the eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspot, which is an amalgamation of a number of forests located in the Assam-Arunachal border areas.
  • The rich biodiversity includes ­diverse species such as slow loris, pig-tailed macaque, stump-tailed macaque, capped langur, Indian leopard, Asian elephant, royal Bengal tiger, gaur, Himalayan black bear, clouded leopard, barking deer, etc.
• The region is also a reservoir of mineral resources like coal and crude oil, and due to its geo-strategic location that separates India from upper Burma and southern China, it holds great significance.

Green Politics and Ecological Nationalism: Exploring the Linkages:

• Green politics is a new concept associated with the political movement that advocates for nature and its myr­iad species.
• On the other hand, the term ecological nationalism refers to a wide range of phenomena, where different forms of nationalism are constructed, imagined and mediated through reference to nature.

Recent Controversy:

• Rising incidents of the coal mining industry in the region had led to the rise in the recent controversy around the area. 
• In the post-colonial period, the Dehing Patkai area assumed significance in the eyes of the Indian political class as a coal-bearing region rather than a biodiversity hotspot.
  • Coal and coal-based power generation was considered a national priority to fulfil the domestic demand of the new nation.
• The possible environmental consequences of coal mining and ecological changes, however, were not addressed then as serious issues.
• Access to education, healthcare and basic amenities was not sufficient in the forest villages, as the government imposed restrictions on the establishment of schools, hospitals and other permanent establishments due to coal mining activities. 
• It has been reported that the mining area of Dehing Patkai falls on a critical elephant corridor linking with the Arunachal forests. This would also escalate elephant–human conflict in the area. 
  • It is also reported that from 1980 to 2003, more than 1,150 humans and 370 elephants died as a result of human–elephant conflict.
• The state has shown that environmental degradation has widely aff­ected the local livelihood in the neighbourhood of coal-mining areas and destroyed the habitats of wild animals, particularly elephants.

Save Dehing Patkai Protest

• In April 2020, the Standing Committee of NBWL under MoFECC recommended the CIL’s proposal for legitimising illegal mining in the Saleki rainforest, which is a part of the greater Dehing Patkai rainforest. 
  • This led to protests from the local people opposing the decision in favour of legitimising illegal mining. 
• Many people called it the killing of the ‘lungs of North East India’. People also raised their voices against illegal coal mining in the Dehing Patkai area.
• According to the report, such unauthorised mining activities were in violation of the Assam Forest Regulation Act, 1891.
• The Save Dehing Patkai protest is a successful protest as it compelled the CIL to withdraw coal mining in the rainforest. The state government constituted a committee for a judicial enquiry into the illegal coal mining.

There is a need to strike a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability. Giving more emphasis to economic growth can seriously undermine the health of the environment. 

5. Cross-border Trade and Economic Development in the Border States of India

Details: 

• Although cross-border trade with countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan is flourishing, there is a huge scope for expanding it with Myanmar and Pakistan.
• Despite India sharing its border with seven countries—Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China—more than 73% of India’s exports to South Asian countries are through land routes (60% through road and 13% by rail).
• However, out of the 17 border states in India, only nine are actively engaged in cross-border trade due to political and security reasons, difficult geographical terrain for connectivity, and open borders in most of the regions leveraging informal trade.
• Initiatives such as Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP), which was announced in the budget 2022–23, aim to promote cross-border trade through cultural and ethnic linkages in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh (HP), and Uttarakhand.

Infrastructure and Economic Development

• Cross-border international trade can open a unique door for the growth of border states, but the potential of these states can only be tapped if there are appropriate policies adopted by both the centre and the state.
• The locational advantage of the region provides a backdrop to its development as a base for cooperation not only with Southeast Asian countries but also with other neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.
  • However, the high transaction costs contributed by the unfavourable terrain and bottlenecks in the transport connecting the NER with the rest of India and the neighbouring countries limit the economic and trade opportunities for the region.
• Despite various steps taken by the government, the share of the manufacturing sector in the gross domestic product (GDP) for most of the border states remains low and much below the national average. 
  • In 2019–20, the share of manufacturing was lowest in Mizoram (0.9%) followed by Nagaland (2%), Arunachal Pradesh (2.9%), and Manipur (3%).

  Image: Share of different sectors in GDP

Source: EP&W

• Moreover, bilateral trade between India and Pakistan has been completely suspended since 2019, mainly attributed to political and security reasons leading to no cross-border trade for Gujarat and Rajasthan.
• Poor infrastructure inhibits trade expansion; for instance, the trade between Pithoragarh and Nepal takes place through suspension bridges restricting the trade volume.

Challenges and Opportunities in Border Trade

• NER’s border with Bangladesh is guarded and protected by a fence but the region’s border with Myanmar is mostly open and porous, resulting in the informal and illicit movement of people and goods across the borders. 
• The border states of India continue to face internal and external security threats. The problem in J&K, due to bilateral relations with Pakistan and China, poses a threat not just to the state but to the entire nation.
• SAARC countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka in particular, are major sources of medical tourists owing to the physical proximity and political co-operational agreements.
• Enabling cross-border trade facilitation helps to reduce trade cost and time, while ensuring safe and secure trade across the border. Trade facilitation measures enable both the physical movement of goods and the information flows associated with the transit of goods in the supply chain. 

Steps taken to improve the trade: 

• The  Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI) has set up nine Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) to provide proper infrastructure and trade facilitation services.
  • As of 2020–21, ICPs have facilitated trade worth $1.2 billion and passenger movement of 2,62,400 persons. The LPAI has also approved 24 more ICPs and it is expected to be operationalised by 2025.
  • Among all, ICP Petrapole (West Bengal) is the largest land port in India, mainly facilitating trade with Bangladesh. ICP Petrapole held the major share of the cross-border total trade in 2015 as well as 2020.
• Both union and state governments have to increase the budget allocation for infrastructure and development initiatives in the border areas to ensure necessary facilities for local people.
  • There is a huge difference in the allocation of expenditure with respect to infrastructure development, and rural and special area programmes for the border region.
• The border states should also ensure the budget allocation for the border regions to ensure proper education, training, and capacity building on entrepreneurial activities and empowering the youth to encourage trading services that would create a huge scope for employment opportunities and increase the livelihoods of the local people.

Expansion of infrastructure and skilling of the people can ensure that trade and commerce activities are strengthened in the remote areas of the country. It will provide a way for the expansion of development in the region. 

Read previous EPW articles in the link.

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