18 Mar 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS 1 Related
SOCIAL ISSUES
1. Abortions till 24 weeks for special categories
2. SC upholds right of women naval officers
B. GS 2 Related
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. Gogoi defends RS nomination
C. GS 3 Related
DEFENCE
1. Navy to get four more P¬8I aircraft from May
ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY
1. Nourishment increases Vizag beachfront
ECONOMY
1. RBI to regulate payment aggregators
D. GS 4 Related
E. Editorials
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. A revival of multilateralism, steered by India
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
1. Coming to terms with biometrics in policing
SOCIAL ISSUES
1. A case for more policewomen
F. Prelims Facts
1. Chaitra Jatra festival at Tara Tarini hill shrine in Odisha’s Ganjam District
2. Bodoland Territorial Council
3. LCA Tejas
G. Tidbits
1. Pollution may affect COVID¬19 patients
2. Milder cases drive spread of coronavirus, finds study
3. Yes Bank all set to lift deposit withdrawal cap
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

A. GS 1 Related

Category: SOCIAL ISSUES

1. Abortions till 24 weeks for special categories

Context:

The Lok Sabha has passed a bill to extend the upper limit for permitting abortions from 20 weeks to 24 under special circumstances.

• The bill amends the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 which provides for the termination of certain pregnancies by registered medical practitioners.

Details:

Termination of pregnancy: 

• Under the Act, a pregnancy may be terminated within 12 weeks, if a registered medical practitioner is of the opinion that:
  • Continuation of the pregnancy may risk the life of the mother, or cause grave injury to her health, or
  • There is a substantial risk that the child, if born, would suffer physical or mental abnormalities.
  • For termination of a pregnancy between 12 to 20 weeks, two medical practitioners are required to give their opinion.
• The Bill amends this provision to state that a pregnancy may be terminated within 20 weeks, with the opinion of a registered medical practitioner.
  • Approval of two registered medical practitioners will be required for termination of pregnancies between 20 to 24 weeks.
  • The termination of pregnancies up to 24 weeks will only apply to specific categories of women, as may be prescribed by the central government.
  • The “special categories of women” include rape survivors, victims of incest, the differently-abled and minors.
• Under the Act, if any pregnancy occurs as a result of failure of any device or method used by a married woman or her husband to limit the number of children, such an unwanted pregnancy may constitute a grave injury to the mental health of the pregnant woman. The Bill amends this provision to replace ‘married woman or her husband’ with ‘woman or her partner’.

Constitution of a Medical Board: 

• The Bill states that the upper limit of termination of pregnancy will not apply in cases where such termination is necessary due to the diagnosis of substantial foetal abnormalities.
• These abnormalities will be diagnosed by a Medical Board.
• Under the Bill, every state government is required to constitute a Medical Board.
  • These Medical Boards will consist of the following members: (i) a gynaecologist, (ii) a paediatrician, (iii) a radiologist or sonologist, and (iv) any other number of members, as may be notified by the state government.

Protection of privacy of a woman:  

• The Bill states that no registered medical practitioner will be allowed to reveal the name and other particulars of a woman whose pregnancy has been terminated, except to a person authorised by any law.

Anyone who contravenes this provision, will be punishable with imprisonment of up to one year, or with a fine, or both.

B. GS 2 Related

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Gogoi defends RS nomination

Context:

Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi has been nominated to Rajya Sabha, less than 6 months after retirement. The Former CJI justified his nomination to the Rajya Sabha but declined to elaborate upon the reasons that made him weigh and accept the offer.

Details:

• The President of India has nominated the former Chief Justice to the Rajya Sabha, as a member of eminence.
• Justice Gogoi will not be the first CJI to sit in the Rajya Sabha. The 21^st CJI, Rangnath Mishra, served as an MP in the Upper House from 1998 to 2004. However, Justice Mishra was a Congress MP, not a member of eminence appointed by the President.
• Baharul Islam was elected to the Rajya Sabha on a Congress ticket in 1962 and 1968. However, he resigned from Parliament in 1972 to become a judge of the Gauhati High Court.
• Justice Gogoi retired in November 2019, after being part of important verdicts like the Ayodhya land dispute, the Sabarimala review and also supervised the exercise to update the National Register of Citizens in Assam.
• Gogoi was one of the four judges, along with Justices J.S. Chelameswar, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph (all retired), who held an unprecedented press conference in January, 2018, to warn the nation about the perceived encroachments by the government on the Supreme Court, the highest judicial institution.
  • The four judges had cautioned that certain sensitive and political cases were being assigned to select Benches of the Supreme Court by successive Chief Justices.
  • The press conference was held when the the case of the death of judge Loya was pending in the court.
• Justice Gogoi was the 46^th CJI.
• Former Supreme Court Judge Mr. Joseph Kurian said, “The acceptance of nomination as member of the Rajya Sabha by a former Chief Justice of India has certainly shaken the confidence of the common man in the independence of the judiciary, which is part of the Basic Structure of the Constitution”.

Note:

• Under Article 80 of the Constitution, the President can appoint 12 MPs “having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of literature, science, art and social service” to the Rajya Sabha.

Way forward:

• There is nothing in the Indian Constitution that prevents the government from offering and, judges from accepting, post-retirement jobs.
  • To include such provisions, the Constitution would have to be amended to provide for a total restriction on judges of constitutional courts from accepting post-retirement government jobs.
  • Articles 148 and 319 of the Constitution already contain such restrictions for the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Chairperson of UPSC, respectively.
• There are some legal issues as well. Several legislations require that former Supreme Court judges head tribunals and commissions. The logical question to ask, therefore, is whether it is time to rework some of these legislations and explore the possibility of appointing experts from outside the judiciary.
• In May 1997, the Supreme Court of India in its Full Court adopted a 16-point charter entitled “Restatement of Values of Judicial Life”.
• The document needs to be revisited to provide for detailed principles and guidance for judges to follow, including a resolution that it would be unethical and immoral for judges to discuss post-retirement career prospects until retirement.

Conclusion:

• The lure of post-retirement postings has plagued India’s constitutional courts for many decades, irrespective of the government or party in power.
• Post-retirement lure is, perhaps, as old the Indian republic itself.
• Most judges, have accepted or discussed post-retirement jobs with successive governments.
• The question is not whether a pre-retirement ruling had led to securing a post-retirement government job, but whether a sitting judge who is exposed to the lure of potential future career prospects could be publicly perceived as acting fairly and impartially.
• Judges are but fallible human beings and personal biases can never be ruled out in decision-making.

C. GS 3 Related

Category: DEFENCE

1. Navy to get four more P¬8I aircraft from May

What’s in News?

The Navy will start receiving four more P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft from Boeing from May 2020 and the process will be completed by January 2022.

Background:

In November 2019, the Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by the Defence Minister, had approved the procurement of six additional P-8I aircraft.

Details:

• These aircraft will also be in the same configuration as the earlier eight aircraft.
• Plans are on to install encrypted communication systems on the earlier ones.
• These systems are available to India following the conclusion of the foundational agreement Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) with the US.
  • COMCASA is a foundational military agreement that allows for the sharing of encrypted communications and equipment .

P-8I Aircraft:

• P-8I is a long-range, multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft manufactured by Boeing for the Indian Navy. It is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon operated by the US Navy.
• The P-8I aircraft was designed to protect the vast coastline and territorial waters of India. It can conduct anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (AsuW), intelligence, maritime patrol, and surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
• The P-8I is equipped with some of the most modern U.S. ASW technology including a Telephonics APS-143 OceanEye aft radar system and a cutting-edge magnetic anomaly detector.
• The aircraft is also armed with U.S. weapons systems including Harpoon Block-II missiles, MK-54 lightweight torpedoes, [and] rockets. The aircraft are all data-linked with Indian submarines in order to have the capability to pass on information about enemy vessels.

D. GS 4 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

E. Editorials

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. A revival of multilateralism, steered by India

Context:

• The article argues for the need for renewed multilateralism in the face of the cross-national and cross-domain nature of challenges confronting the world and the need for India to play the leadership role in such an endeavour.

Details:

Challenges to the world:

• The current COVID-19 pandemic brings to light the nature of challenges that the world has been facing and is bound to face in the coming future.
  • The challenges would be mostly cross-national in character. They would not be bound to one region or country, neither being limited to national boundaries nor being controllable by national solutions. The world is increasingly becoming more inter-connected, inter-related and also interdependent.
    • In the case of climate change, though there are differences in the intensity of effect on different countries, it is a global problem. Though the major contributors of the green house gas emissions have been the developed countries, climate change would impact even the underdeveloped and developing countries.
    • Similarly in the case of poverty, though poverty is often considered as a local or regional issue, it also manifests itself in the form of increased migration and in some cases breeding ground for extremism. Thus poverty is also cross national in character.
  • The challenges would be cross-domain in nature, with strong feedback loops between the different domains. A disruption in one domain will result in disruptions in other related domains as well.
    • The use of chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides may promote food security but have injurious health effects, undermining health security.
    • The use of cheap coal may promote energy security but would have a detrimental effect on the environment and ecology.

The COVID-19 pandemic:

• COVID-19 is a classic cross-national and cross-domain challenge.
  • It is a global challenge which recognises no political boundaries. Though it originated in China, recent reports point to the fact that Europe has become the new epicentre of the pandemic.
  • COVID-19 pandemic is intimately linked to the whole pattern of large-scale and high-density food production and distribution. Though it is primarily a health crisis, it is also causing an economic crisis by disrupting global value chains and creating a simultaneous demand shock.

Addressing the challenges:

• Given the intersection of cross-national and cross-domain challenges, tackling the challenges would need multilateral approaches.
• Addressing cross-national challenges requires regional and global collaboration. There is the need for empowered international institutions of governance leading the global efforts. The spirit of internationalism and solidarity between all humans would come in handy.
• The inter-domain linkages need to be understood well and should inform policy interventions for effective tackling of the challenges. Notably, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reflect this awareness.

General Concerns:

Rise of nationalism:

• In the recent past, there has been an upsurge in narrow nationalism, with greater emphasis on self benefit over shared interests. This has fostered competition among states rather than encouraging collaboration.

Lack of co-ordination among countries:

• Despite the world becoming more inter-connected, inter-related and also interdependent, the global community has not been able to come on a single platform or frame a Global Agenda, to overcome global challenges like poverty, terrorism, Climate Change issues, etc.

Concerns with respect to COVID-19 collaboration:

Lack of co-ordination:

• The interventions to deal with the COVID-19 crisis have so far been mostly at the national level, relying on quarantine and social distancing.
• There is virtually no coordination at the international level. In fact, the blame game between China and the United States over China’s handling of the COVID-19 does not augur well for international cooperation and leadership.

Deepening the divide:

• One of the dreaded consequences of the current crisis may be that nationalist trends become more intense.
• Countries may begin to isolate themselves and the existing multilateralism may be further weakened. Institutions such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization which are already marginalized may become increasingly irrelevant.
• There could be a return to closed economic and trade policies giving rise to deeper and more pervasive anti-globalization sentiments.

Way forward:

Renewed multilateralism:

• There is the need to move away from nationalistic urges and embrace the logic of international cooperation through revived and strengthened multilateral institutions and processes.
• There is the urgent need for reaffirmation of multilateralism.

Need for leadership:

• The global financial and economic crisis of 2008 saw the birth of the G-20 summit and the U.S. led coordinated response prevented catastrophic damage to the global economy.
• However, worryingly, there is the shortage of both leadership and statesmanship in the current times. In such a scenario, India, with its long tradition of international activism and promotion of rule-based multilateralism can play a pivotal role in assuming leadership of reviving multilateralism.

India’s foreign policy:

• Keeping with its traditional sense of international responsibility in foreign relations, India has shown commendable initiative in convening leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation nations for a regional collaborative effort on COVID-19. This should be followed by an international initiative, either through the G-20 or through the U.N.
• A leadership role in mobilizing global collaboration, more specifically in fighting COVID-19 would be in keeping with India’s traditional activism on the international stage.
• The COVID-19 pandemic presents India with an opportunity to revive multilateralism, become a strong and credible champion of internationalism and assume a leadership role in a world that is adrift.

For more information on this issue refer to 17 March 2020 Comprehensive News Analysis.

Category: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1. Coming to terms with biometrics in policing

Context:

• The author of the article argues for the use of counter-crime facial recognition technology.

Background:

Police functions:

• There has been growing consensus that the police duties should not be restricted to the mere maintenance of peace in public places but should focus equally on crime prevention and detection.
• While preventing a crime is difficult and usually beyond human capacity (because of the dimensions and complexities of modern society), solving a crime is relatively easy.

Under-performance of the police:

• There has been gross under-performance by the police with respect to law enforcement in crime prevention and detection.
  • Crime using knives continue to worry London’s Metropolitan Police, while the frequency of gun violence is high in U.S. cities, despite robust and aggressive policing.
  • Even police forces with huge manpower and with access to the latest technology have not been able to increase the success rates in solving crime, which lie in the low range between 30% and 40%. The low percentage of crime detection has led to the lack of public confidence in policing.
  • Even in the Indian scenario, except in sensational cases which have attracted considerable public and media attention, the Indian police have also been guilty of underperformance.

Paradox:

• Though citizens demand newer crime control measures to help keep them safe, they also sometimes resent productive and smarter police innovations in the field of crime control, because of perceived danger to individual rights and privacy.
• The main argument has been that the end of solving crimes cannot and should not justify the means used by state agencies.

Details:

Counter-crime facial recognition technology:

• A facial recognition system is a technology capable of identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source.
• Generally, the technology helps compare selected facial features from given image with faces within a database. Also described as a Biometric Artificial Intelligence based application, it can uniquely identify a person by analyzing patterns based on the person’s facial textures and shape.
• Taking into account how criminals merge with the community to escape identification, law enforcement and security agencies have been using facial recognition technology to track down criminals and help in crime detection.

India’s efforts:

• India has an ambitious plan to construct one of the world’s largest facial recognition systems. The project envisions a future in which police from across the country would have access to a single, centralized database.
• The details of the national aggregator project called the National Automated Facial Recognition System were highlighted in the report by the National Crime Records Bureau.
• The project would match images from the country’s growing network of CCTV cameras against a database encompassing images of criminals, passport photos and images collected by various security agencies.
• Many agencies and state governments are already using their own facial recognition apps.

Concerns:

• There have been sharp adverse responses to the increased use of counter-crime facial recognition technology.

Bias:

• There are concerns that the software discriminates against minorities and ethnic groups, especially blacks and other non-whites. The suggestion is that there are a disproportionate number of black and non-white faces captured by this software. This charge applies mainly to the police in the U.S.
• There have been charges of bias against the ‘stop and frisk’ practice of the New York Police to combat crime. Several studies conducted revealed that more black and brown people were stopped and frisked than was warranted. The same charge of bias has now been brought against face recognition technology.

Lack of regulation:

• Currently, there are no laws regulating the use of facial recognition technology. Given that this technology can be a powerful tool in the hands of the government and is liable to be misused, regulation should logically come before deployment of the technology.
• The lack of a legal infrastructure that prevents the use of invasive technologies by agencies and state-backed organizations is a major concern.

Privacy violation:

• There has been opposition also from the rights activists who focus on privacy violation due to the facial recognition technology. They claim that the practice of capturing faces or policing without consent harms individual’s right to privacy. They have raised the spectre of mass surveillance.
• The Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that Indians have a fundamental right to privacy.

Chances of error:

• The technology, despite the claim of infallibility by the promoters, has many a time been found guilty of errors. Therefore, harassment of innocent citizens is not uncommon.
• The danger of misidentification is a major concern.

Counter-arguments:

Making up for the shortfall:

• India has just 144 police officers for every 100000 citizens. The authorities have turned to facial recognition technology to make up for the shortfall of police personnel.

Effectiveness of the technology:

• The staunch defenders of the technology have been the police who have stressed on the effectiveness of the technology in tackling crime. It has been used to police large events and fight crimes in states like Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.
• Indian police, for example, in the state of Telangana, under the Operation Smile, have reunited thousands of missing and trafficked children with their families using a new facial recognition app.
• An increasing number of cases are being solved with the help of facial recognition in cities like London and New York.

Unfounded concerns:

• The defenders of the technology have dismissed the charge that the technology is against the privacy rights of an individual.
  • Citizens do hand over data to private companies while availing services from them, still there are no concerns being expressed about privacy. The concerns with sharing similar data with the police are unfounded.
  • Individual’s faces are already online in a number of places. Increased use of CCTV cameras in a number of public places is in a sense a threat to anonymity.
• There is the possibility of having provisions which further help protect an individual’s right to privacy.
  • There are several provisions in place in important cities like London with respect to protecting privacy rights. The photos captured are compared with the database of the police. The moment there is no match of a face with existing records, it is deleted.
  • Even when there are matches with the existing police database, the photos are deleted within 31 days of capture if there is no requirement for further investigation.
• Though there cannot be the claim of infallibility, grave errors from its use have been found to be few and far between.
• The argument of bias falls flat given the fact that the cameras are meant to take pictures at random rather than of specific segments of the population.

Conclusion:

• Just as DNA testing establishes either the guilt or the innocence of a person arraigned for crime, facial recognition performs an equally vital role in criminal justice administration.
• Though modern technologies like facial recognition technology is fraught with hidden dangers, there should be hope that care and sophistication in its implementation would help transform investigation.

Category: SOCIAL ISSUES

1. A case for more policewomen

Context:

• Women in the police force.

Background:

• In 2009, the Home Ministry set 33% as the target for women’s representation in the police.
• Since then, the central and state governments have focussed on increasing women’s recruitment in the police force. Reservation has been the primary tool to increase women’s representation in the police force.

Concerns:

Large deviation from the set target:

• In 2019, women comprised less than 10% of police personnel.
• Only seven States (Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Sikkim) had more than 10% policewomen.

Lack of intent:

• No government has so far developed any action plan with clear timelines to meet the quota within a specified time period.
• The annual change in the share of women in the police force from 2012 to 2016 was found to be less than 1% across States, according to the India Justice Report, 2019. There has been a meagre 5% increase in the number of policewomen in a decade (3.65% in 2009 to 8.98% in 2019).
• At this rate, most States will take over 50 years to achieve the 33% target.

Selective implementation:

• While the States have adopted the reservation policy, they have been very selective about its implementation.
• Very few States apply reservation for women at all the entry points (constable, sub-inspector, and deputy superintendent of police levels) or to all posts at each level.
• Other states have applied reservation only at the lower entry levels. In some cases, reservation is limited to specific cadre posts within each rank.

Lack of representation at higher levels:

• The selective implementation of the reservation policy has led to huge disparity in the representation of women across ranks.
• There are far fewer women at the gazetted ranks at the State level (assistant sub-inspector to deputy superintendent of police) than those at the constabulary level. Women remain in large numbers at the bottom of the ladder without moving up. There are reduced chances of women getting promoted to leadership and supervisory positions.

Gender-based crimes:

• Given the fact that there are very few women officers in the higher ranks, there are not enough women personnel to perform exclusive functions when gender-based crimes are reported.
• The 2013 circular by the Home Ministry states that at least three women sub-inspectors should be available in a police station as investigating officers. Tamil Nadu, which has the highest percentage of women personnel would still fall short and require more women sub-inspectors to meet this standard across its police stations.

Challenges:

• The major institutional barriers to women in the force include:
  • Frequent inter-district transfers
  • Disallowing postings in home districts for specified periods of time
  • Poor childcare support systems
  • Lack of adequate facilities and infrastructure for women
• Sexual harassment at the workplace that policewomen suffer needs to be adequately acknowledged.
• Discrimination in work is a concern. Women are typecast, for example, they are asked to deal with crimes against women, while they are kept outside the mainstream of varied experiences.

Way forward:

• The underlying assumption seems to be that an increase in numbers will automatically make the organisational culture more egalitarian. It is time to look beyond mere number of women in the force to institutional barriers that hinder women’s growth within the service.
• Institutional changes embedded in principles of diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunities are important.

G. Tidbits

1. Pollution may affect COVID¬19 patients

What’s in News?

A collective of doctors working on health impacts of air pollution has warned that people living in regions with high levels of air pollution and with compromised lung function could be more vulnerable to COVID-19.

• The Doctors For Clean Air (DFCA) has warned that compromised lung function due to air pollution could lead to serious complications in patients affected by the pandemic.
• Exposure to air pollution in long term reduces the capacity of organs to function fully and makes it more vulnerable to infections and diseases. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, such individuals are likely to face severe complications, said the DFCA.
• However, there are, so far no proven links between air pollution and COVID-19 mortality.
• It must be noted that previous strains of coronavirus like SARS have known to cause higher deaths in regions with high levels of air pollution.

H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions

Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to “LCA Tejas”:

1.  It is an indigenous aircraft designed and developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
2. It is the smallest and lightest Multi-Role Supersonic Fighter Aircraft of its class.
3. It has a single engine and compound Delta wing.

Which of the given statement/s is/are correct?

a. 1 only
b. 2 and 3 only
c. 1, 2 and 3 only
d. 1 and 3 only

See

 

Q2. Consider the following statements about the River Rushikulya:

1. River Rushikulya originates in the Eastern Ghats range.
2. The river does not have delta at its mouth.
3. The river is famous for ‘Arribada’.

Which of the given statement/s is/are correct?

a. 2 and 3 only
b. 1 and 2 only
c. 1, 2 and 3 only
d. 1 and 3 only

See

Q3. Consider the following statements with respect to the Upper House/Rajya Sabha:

1. Every Rajya Sabha MP has a tenure of five years and elections to one-third seats are held every two years.
2. Under Article 80 of the Constitution, the President of India can appoint 8 MPs to the Rajya Sabha.
3. As per the constitutional limit, the Upper House’s strength cannot exceed 250.

Which of the given statement is/are incorrect?

a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. 1 and 3 only
d. 1 and 2 only

See

Q4.Consider the following statements with respect to COMCASA:

1. COMCASA is a pact signed to provide a legal framework for the transfer of communication security equipment from Russia to India.
2. COMCASA is meant to facilitate use of high-end secured communication equipment to be installed on military platforms being sold to India.

Which of the given statement/s is/are incorrect?

a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2

See

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Given the increasing trend of human challenges being cross-national and cross-domain in character, the need for renewed multilateralism has only increased. Comment. Also discuss India’s role in such an endeavour. (10 marks, 150 words)
2. In the light of the increasing use of counter-crime facial recognition technology in India and the world, discuss the need for it and the associated concerns with its usage. Suggest suitable safeguards in the deployment of the technology. (15 marks, 250 words)