UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis Dec02

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

Context

• The Centre has prepared guidelines for setting up of crèches at workplaces, which prescribe trained personnel to man the facility as well as infrastructure requirements and safety norms.
• In March this year, Parliament passed the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act, 2017, enhancing paid maternity leave from a period of 12 weeks to 26 weeks. The law is applicable to all institutions with 10 or more employees. It also makes it mandatory for every organisation with 50 or more employees to have a crèche.

Details of the Safety Norms

• A crèche be either at the workplace or within 500 metres of it. Alternatively, it could also be in the beneficiaries’ neighbourhood.
• The facility should be open for eight to 10 hours and if the employees have a shift system, then the crèche should also be run accordingly. A crèche must have a minimum space of 10 to 12 square feet per child to ensure that she or he can play, rest and learn. There should be no unsafe places such as open drains, pits, garbage bins near the centre.
• The crèches should have at least one guard, who should have undergone police verification. There should also be at least one supervisor per crèche and a trained worker for every 10 children under three years of age or for every 20 children above the age of three, along with a helper.
• The government has also recommended that no outsiders such as plumbers, drivers, electricians be allowed inside the crèche when children are present.
• A crèche monitoring committee with representations from among crèche workers, parents and administration should be formed. There should also be a grievance redressal committee for inquiring into instances of sexual abuse. The guidelines are not mandatory but are a yardstick for NGOs and organisations for setting up of creches.

The Maternity Benefit Act

• The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, applies to establishments employing 10 or more than 10 persons in factories, mines, plantation, shops & establishments and other entities.
• The main purpose of this Act is to regulate the employment of women in certain establishments for certain period before and after child birth and to provide maternity benefit and certain other benefits. The Act was amended through the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017.

The amendment has brought in major changes to the law relating to maternity benefits.

• It extends the period of maternity benefit from 12 weeks to 26 weeks of which not more than eight weeks can precede the date of the expected delivery. This exceeds the International Labour Organisation’s minimum standard of 14 weeks and is a positive development. However, a woman who has two or more surviving children will be entitled to 12 weeks of which not more than six weeks can precede the date of the expected delivery.
• Women who legally adopt a child below the age of three months or a “commissioning mother” will be entitled to maternity benefit for 12 weeks from the date on which the child is handed over to her. A commissioning mother is defined as a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in another woman.
• It gives discretion to employers to allow women to work from home after the period of maternity benefit on mutually agreeable conditions. This would apply if the nature of work assigned to the woman permits her to work from home
• It requires establishments having 50 or more employees to have a crèche facility, either separately or along with common facilities. Further, employers should allow the woman to visit the crèche four times a day, which “shall also include the interval for rest allowed to her.”
• It introduces a provision which requires every establishment to intimate a woman at the time of her appointment of the maternity benefits available to her. Such communication must be in writing and electronically.

Context

• The Odisha government on Saturday ordered the closure of all shelter homes run by NGO Good News India after inmates of its Dhenkanal home complained of sexual harassment on the premises.

Details of the issue

• Simanchal Nayak, the in-charge of the GNI shelter home at Beltikiri in Dhenkanal district, was taken into custody. He has been accused of sexually abusing minor girl inmates of the shelter home.
• The Dhenkanal police are also looking for Faiz Rahman, the founder and chairman of GNI, after some shelter home staff referred to his questionable conduct. They told media persons on Saturday that Mr. Rahman and even foreign nationals used to visit the home at different times and behave inappropriately with the girls.
• Prafulla Samal, the State’s Women and Child Development Minister, said no permission was granted to GNI to establish shelter homes in Odisha. “The GNI had not contacted any administrative wing of the government. The official in charge of the shelter home has been arrested. We will ensure stringent action is taken against officials of GNI,” he said.
• The Minister said orders have been issued to shift children from all GNI shelter homes to the nearest childcare institutions. “There are 22 to 26 GNI-run organisations in different districts [of Odisha]. The District Collectors have already been told to investigate and shut down its shelter homes,” he said.
• As many as 81 inmates, including boys and girls, have been staying at the Dhenkanal shelter home. The district administration has been directed to shift 62 minor inmates of the shelter home to nearby childcare institutions or hand them over to their guardians immediately.

Basics of NGOs

• Non-Government Organisations are legally constituted organizations, operate independently from the government and are generally considered to be “non-state, non-profit oriented groups who pursue purposes of public interest”.
• The primary objective of NGOs is to provide social justice, development and human rights. NGOs are generally funded totally or partly by governments and they maintain their non-governmental status by excluding government representatives from membership in the organization.
• In a democratic society, it is the state that has the ultimate responsibility for ushering development to its citizens. In India, through the progressive interpretation of the Constitution and its laws and policies, the scope of development has been significantly broadened to include not just economic progress for citizens, but also promotion of social justice, gender equity, inclusion, citizen’s awareness, empowerment and improved quality of life.
• To achieve this holistic vision of development, the state requires the constructive and collaborative engagement of the civil society in its various developmental activities and programs. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as the operational arm of the civil society therefore have an important role in the development processes.

Some facts about NGOs

• India has possibly the largest number of active non-government, non-profit organizations in the world. There has been a sharp increase in the number of new NGOs in the past decade in India.
• According to a government study, there were only 1.44 lakh registered societies till 1970. The maximum increase in the number of registrations happened after 2000. A recent study commissioned by the government showed that there are about 3.3 million NGOs in India by the end of 2009 i.e., one NGO for less than an average of 400 Indians. Even this staggering number may be less than the actual number of NGOs active in the country.
• This is because the study, commissioned in 2008, took into consideration only those entities which were registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 or the Mumbai Public Trust Act and its variants in other states.
• It can be noted that a great majority of the NGOs are small and about three-fourths of all NGOs are run entirely by volunteers. About 13 percent of the NGOs have between 2 to 5 employees; about 5 percent have between 6 to 10 employees and only about 8.5 percent NGOs employ more than 10 people.
• According to a survey conducted by society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 73.4 percent of NGOs have one or no paid staff, although across the country, more than 19 million persons work as volunteers or paid staff at an NGO.
• More often NGOs are registered as trusts, societies, or as private limited non-profit companies, under Section- 25 of Indian Companies Act, 1956. They also enjoy income tax exemption. Foreign contributions to non-profits are governed by Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 1976.

Context

• India on Friday presented a nine-point agenda before G20 countries, calling for “strong and active cooperation” to deal with fugitive economic offenders comprehensively.

Details of the Agenda

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented the agenda in the second session of the G20 Summit on international trade, international financial and tax systems here.
• “Cooperation in legal processes, such as effective freezing of the proceeds of crime, early return of the offenders, and efficient repatriation of the proceeds of crime should be enhanced and streamlined,” the agenda read.
• India called for joint efforts by G20 countries to form a mechanism that denied entry and safe havens to fugitive economic offenders.
• India suggested that the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) be called upon to establish international cooperation that led to timely and comprehensive exchange of information between the authorities and financial intelligence units.
• “FATF should be tasked with formulating a standard definition of fugitive economic offenders. FATF should also develop a set of commonly agreed and standardised procedures related to identification, extradition and judicial proceedings for dealing with fugitive economic offenders,” it said.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 on the initiative of the G7.
• It is a “policy-making body” which works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in various areas.
• The FATF Secretariat is housed at the OECD headquarters in Paris.
• The objectives of the FATF are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
• The FATF monitors the progress of its members in implementing necessary measures, reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and counter-measures, and promotes the adoption and implementation of appropriate measures globally.
• In collaboration with other international stakeholders, the FATF works to identify national-level vulnerabilities with the aim of protecting the international financial system from misuse.

About G20

• Formed in 1999, the G20 is an international forum of the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies.
• Collectively, the G20 economies account for around 85 percent of the Gross World Product (GWP), 80 percent of world trade.
• To tackle the problems or the address issues that plague the world, the heads of governments of the G20 nations periodically participate in summits. In addition to it, the group also hosts separate meetings of the finance ministers and foreign ministers.
• The G20 has no permanent staff of its own and its chairmanship rotates annually between nations divided into regional groupings.
• The first G20 Summit was held in Berlin in December 1999 and was hosted by the finance ministers of Germany and Canada.
• 2018 Summit will be the 13th meeting of Group of Twenty (G20) and the first G20 summit to be hosted in South America.

Member Countries

• The members of the G20 consist of 19 individual countries plus the European Union (EU).
• The 19 member countries of the forum are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.
• The European Union is represented by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank.

Objectives

• The Group was formed with an aim of studying, reviewing, and promoting high-level discussion of policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability.
• The forum aims to pre-empt balance of payments problems and turmoil on financial markets by improved coordination of monetary, fiscal, and financial policies.
• The forum seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organisation.

C. GS3 Related

Context

• By studying the complex interplay between the sugars and microbes in mother’s milk and the baby’s gut microbes, an international team of researchers has tried to understand neonatal rotavirus infection.
• Rotavirus infection is one of the leading causes of gastroenteritis in children under five years worldwide. Babies in 10 Indian states are immunised against rotavirus.

Rotavirus

• Rotavirus is a leading cause of severe diarrhoea and death among children less than five years of age. It is responsible for around 10% of total child mortality every year. In 2014, nearly 80,000 children died due to to rotavirus, whereas about 9 lakh were hospitalised due to episodes of severe diarrhoea.
• Kids with a rotavirus infection have fever, nausea, and vomiting, often followed by abdominal cramps and frequent, watery diarrhea. Kids may also have a cough and runny nose.
• Sometimes the diarrhea that accompanies a rotavirus infection is so severe that it can quickly lead to dehydration.
• As with all viruses, though, some rotavirus infections cause few or no symptoms, especially in adults.
• Rotavirus is transmitted by the faecal-oral route, via contact with contaminated hands, surfaces and objects, and possibly by the respiratory route. Viral diarrhea is highly contagious.

Microbiome

• The human body carries diverse communities of microorganisms, which are mainly bacterial. These are referred to as “human microbiome”.
• These organisms play a key role in many aspects of host physiology, ranging from metabolism of otherwise complex indigestible carbohydrates and fats to producing essential vitamins, maintaining immune systems and acting as a first line of defense against pathogens.
• Research on the human microbiome has thrown light on various aspects — how different parts of the human body are occupied by characteristic microbial communities, and how various factors contribute in shaping the composition of the microbiome, including the genetics, dietary habits, age, geographic location and ethnicity. These studies laid a strong foundation to decipher the microbiome’s implications on health and a wide range of diseases.

D. GS4 Related

Context

• The quantity of heroin seized in Mizoram has increased steadily since 2014 when the State government replaced total prohibition with controlled prohibition.

Details of the issue

• In 2014 the year Lal Thanhawla’s Congress government enacted the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) Act to end 18 years of a church-enforced ban on liquor consumption.
• While enforcement officials attribute this trend to the 2013 countrywide ban on the sale of painkiller capsules containing the opioid Dextropropoxyphene, the Church — influential in Christian-dominated Mizoram — is sceptical about this “theory”.
• The heroin seizures, the Church argues, have undermined the government’s contention that liquor helps wean people off drugs.
• Excise officials said there is no scientific evidence yet to link the seizure of drugs with the government’s alcohol policy.
• But the church, which had in the run up to the November 28 Assembly election in the State urged the political parties to push for prohibition, is convinced that availability of liquor does not necessarily check drug abuse.
• “We engaged university teachers for a study on the effect of controlled prohibition,” said Reverend B. Sangthanga, executive secretary of the Mizoram Synod of the Presbyterian Church. “The finding was that liquor really damaged the Mizo society in terms of depleting finances, domestic violence, increase in drug abuse and HIV/AIDS cases,” he observed.
• The government, for its part, commissioned a study by a 27-member review and evaluation committee, which examined the advantages and disadvantages of opening wine shops in the State. The study, tabled in July, found that for every ₹1 of revenue earned from alcohol, an estimated ₹85 was being spent on social costs.

General Facts about Alcohol Abuse

• According to NCRB data, 15 people die every day – or one every 96 minutes – from the effects of drinking alcohol.
• Per capita consumption of alcohol in India increased 38 percent, from 1.6 litres in 2003-05 to 2.2 litres in 2010-12.
• More than 11 percent of Indians were binge drinkers, against the global average of 16 percent.
• Maharashtra reported the most alcohol-related deaths, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
• Major crimes and accidents are fuelled by alcohol, which also leads to sexual harassment of women and robberies.
• Alcohol abuse is said to be the major reason behind that Tamil Nadu has the largest number of widows under 30 years of age.
• According to the Alcohol and Drug Information Centre, quarter of all hospital admissions and 69 percent of all crimes in Kerala are due in part to intoxication.

Effectiveness of Prohibition

• There are many examples in place which proves that previous bans in many states have not worked according to the expectations.
• Prohibition of substances which give pleasure to people does not work.
• Prohibition is rejected by most public health scientists who know this field, even the World Health Organisation does not recommend it.
• Both law and religion have not been successful in preventing the spread of alcoholism in their countries.
• In Muslim countries, where the injunction against drinking is often the strongest, there has been a steady rise in alcohol sales and consumption.
• According to a survey by Euromonitor, a research firm based in London, alcohol consumption rose by 25 percent in West Asia and Africa between 2005 and 2010.
• Ban deprives States of an important source of revenue.
• For instance, in Tamil Nadu nearly Rs.30,000 crore, or 1/4th of its revenue in 2015-16, came from taxes on the sale of alcohol and excise on manufacturing spirits.
• Gujarat has had a total alcohol ban since 1960, but this hasn’t stopped the sale and consumption of alcohol in the state.
• It has been reported that its easier to get alcohol than food in Gujarat, with home-delivered bottles.
• Haryana and Andhra Pradesh have also tried the failed experiment, only to roll back the prohibition within few years.

Way Forward

• The history and facts clearly shows that liquor ban has not provided the governments with the intended results, thus government must come up with measures that can change the attitude and behavior of the citizens of India towards liquor consumption.
• This goal can be achieved only through better information and education about the evils of alcohol consumption to the young generation.

E. Editorials

Larger Background:

• Recently, India and Pakistan announced plans of operationalizing a visa-free corridor between Dera Baba Nanak in Indian Punjab and Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan’s Punjab.
• This has been a longstanding plea of Sikh pilgrims.
• For a historical perspective, it is important to note that this demand had gathered pace in 1995, when Pakistan renovated the Kartarpur gurdwara, situated on the site on the bank of the Ravi where the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, spent his last 18 years.
• As a matter of fact, leaders from both sides, including Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Benazir Bhutto, had pushed for it. In their effort to facilitate travel by Sikhs to important shrines on both sides of the border, they were also alert to the potential of such a move to heal ties amongst their people, and promote dialogue between the two governments.

A role this corridor can play:

• • Given its easy logistics, the 4-km-long Kartarpur corridor is a low-hanging fruit as a meaningful confidence-building measure.
  • Experts believe that this announcement is particularly timely, with the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak falling in November 2019.

• The initiative can also become a template for cross-border exchanges based on faith, which could provide a balm for many communities such as:

1. Kashmiri Pandits, who have long asked for access to visit the Sharda Peeth in the Neelum Valley in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir;
2. Sufis in Pakistan who wish to visit the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan; and
3. Sikhs in India and Pakistan wanting to visit important shrines on both sides of the border.

A Closer Look:

• • Experts believe that much will depend on how quickly India and Pakistan act on their commitment, once President Ram Nath Kovind lays the foundation stone at the corridor’s India end on November 26, 2018 and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan does so at the other end on November 28.
  • Further, even more will depend on how the two governments manage their relationship in a way that avoids making pilgrims a pawn in bilateral tensions.
  • Recently, there was an ugly and unnecessary controversy when Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa revived the Kartarpur proposal in a conversation with Navjot Singh Sidhu, a Minister in the Congress government in Punjab, at Mr. Imran Khan’s swearing-in ceremony in August 2018. This had set back bilateral ties, threatening progress on the project proposal.
  • Going forward however, it is important that issues related to the corridor are managed in a non-political manner and details left to diplomats and officials to sort out — for instance, the issue of Indian consular access to pilgrims, which had recently flared up.

• Lastly, experts believe that given the bilateral freeze, the Kartarpur project will compel India and Pakistan to engage in a positive and purposeful manner, at a time when few other avenues for engagement exist. It is a reminder that dialogue and search for areas of concord are the only way forward for both countries.

Editorial Analysis:

• The Kartarpur shrine is located in Pakistani Punjab’s Narowal province.

• Some experts expect that ever since India and Pakistan announced plans of operationalizing a visa-free corridor between Dera Baba Nanak in Indian Punjab and Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan’s Punjab, the region would be transformed into a bustling network of tourists and pilgrims.
• In the last 70 years, several Indian governments and countless delegations from the Sikh community have appealed to the Pakistani government to open access for them directly over the border from Dera Baba Nanak, by building a “pilgrim corridor.”
• However, it wasn’t until August 2018, when Pakistan’s Army chief General Bajwa went up to the Congress leader and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu at the swearing-in of Prime Minister Imran Khan and told him that the proposal was being considered, that India received the first official assurance on the issue.
• Further, India has also committed to building its end of a two-kilometre four-lane highway corridor from Dera Baba Nanak to the border. The plan is to complete the project by November 23, 2019, the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.

Uniqueness of the Project:

• The project is unique for several reasons. The reasons are as below:

1. Human corridors of this sort are normally used for emergency situations: refugees fleeing violence or humanitarian disasters.
2. Secondly, the corridor will come up at a time when few avenues for India-Pakistan relations exist. It is important to note that in the past few years, not only has all official dialogue ceased but other exchanges by actors, artists, authors, academics, media and musicians have all but ended.
3. Further, religious pilgrimages by Sikhs and Hindus to shrines in Pakistan and by Muslims to Sufi shrines in India see a reduced number of visas, and the corridor will be an exception where large numbers will be able to travel visa-free, according to the current plan.

However, many logistics will have to be finalised once officials on both sides meet.

Concluding Remarks:

• In conclusion, it is important to note that Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary is the most obvious reason for fast-tracking the project.
• However, other questions are legitimately being raised about Pakistan’s decision, which was first conveyed by its military leadership, not the political one, to accept the request from India for the corridor.
• Security officials have pointed to an uptick in Sikh separatist violence fuelled by terror groups in Punjab, and the appearance of organisations and posters in Gurdwaras in Pakistan that call for a “referendum” in 2020 on a separate state of Khalistan to question whether the move has a hidden motive to radicalise pilgrims.
• Further, on the Indian side, the Central government’s desire to cater to a major domestic constituency, and its alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab, has added to its alacrity in responding to Pakistan.
• Critics however point out that despite India vowing not to engage with Islamabad until “terror ends,” it sent two senior Ministers to attend the ground-breaking ceremony by Mr. Khan at Kartarpur this week.
• Finally, it is important to note that in a relationship where ties have always progressed at a glacial pace, and often face reverses, the Kartarpur corridor initiative has moved rapidly since August 2018.
• On the Pakistan side, a full proposal has already been made, including an expressway that will take pilgrims by bus from the border to the shrine.
• Finally, the corridor of peace, as it has been termed by leaders on both sides, stands apart for its potential to further other such exchanges, as well as in promoting dialogue between the two neighbours.
• For the moment at least, the Kartarpur initiative itself will be a major marker for both governments to accomplish in the next year, and the realisation of a dream for so many, for so many decades.

Category: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

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