24 Mar 2021: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

CNA 24th March 2021:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. GS 1 Related
B. GS 2 Related
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. India abstains in UNHRC vote on Sri Lanka
2. China, Russia propose new security dialogue platform
3. Indus water panel holds meeting
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. OTT case: SC stays all pleas in HCs
C. GS 3 Related
D. GS 4 Related
E. Editorials
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. The surge of geopolitics in South Asia’s power trade
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. The case that time forgot
2. Corrective voice
3. An extraordinary legislative misadventure
F. Prelims Facts
1. States to get ₹ 3,000 crore in GST dues
G. Tidbits
1. Sri Lanka secures $1.5 bn Chinese loan
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

2. China, Russia propose new security dialogue platform

Context:

China and Russia proposed the establishment of a regional security dialogue platform to converge a new consensus on resolving the security concerns of countries in the region.

Details:

• The proposal has been made to address security concerns of countries in the region, as their Foreign Ministers hit out at the United States for forming small circles to seek bloc confrontation.
• The proposal comes in the backdrop of the U.S.-China summit in Alaska and the leaders’ summit of the Quad (India, Australia, Japan and the U.S.), grouping.
• The countries hit out at attempts by the West to interfere in both countries’ internal affairs. They criticised the U.S. and the EU for their recent sanctions on Russia and China.
• Also, China and Russia have rejected U.S. calls for a rules-based order (a call endorsed by the Quad summit).
• Both the countries instead said that all countries must follow the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and uphold true multilateralism, make international relations more democratic, and accept and promote peaceful coexistence and common development of countries with different social systems and development paths.

Note:

China and Russia are already part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) security grouping, which includes India.

Read more on Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

3. Indus water panel holds meeting

Context:

After a gap of more than two and a half years, Indian and Pakistani delegations have begun the 116th Meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission.

Details:

• The meeting is being viewed as part of the broader process of normalisation of bilateral ties between the two neighbours.
• The meeting is being led by the Indus Water Commissioners of both countries.
• The positive backdrop of the talks between the two delegations has indicated that the interaction is likely supported by the reported back-channel talks that are taking place between India and Pakistan.

1. OTT case: SC stays all pleas in HCs

Context:

The Supreme Court has stayed the proceedings in High Courts in cases seeking regulation of content shown on over-the-top (OTT) platforms.

Also read: New IT Rules, 2021

Details:

• While the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said that the Rules were based on a globally recognised model and keep a fine balance, it is being criticised as lacking teeth to punish violators or to screen offensive content.

Read more on the Information Technology [Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code] Rules of 2021 covered in  28^th February 2021 Comprehensive News Analysis and criticisms covered in the Editorials segment of 1^st March 2021 Comprehensive News Analysis.

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. The case that time forgot

Context:

• Recently the Allahabad High Court acquitted Vishnu Tiwari in a rape case after spending 20 years in prison.
• This case is illustrative of the tragic consequences that can follow from a huge number of cases pending in various courts.
• It highlights the cracks of a bloated legal system.

Details:

• In 2003, Mr. Tiwari was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape under the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
• His appeal before the Allahabad High Court was pending for 16 years as a defective matter.
  • These defects are usually in the nature of missing documents or documents in the wrong format and are remedied by the lawyer, and the case gets listed.
  • Tiwari’s lawyer had no interest in pursuing the case, and the appeal stayed defective.
• The High Court pointed out in its judgment that the State government did not consider commuting his life sentence after 14 years.
• A legal aid lawyer was handed the case in 2019 when the jail authorities requested the High Court to provide a lawyer to Mr. Tiwari.
• The process of getting the ‘paperbook’, a compilation of the lower court’s records, took nearly two years.
• The fact that Mr. Tiwari is now a free man and his case was heard by the High Court is a consequence of fortunate circumstances and the presence of a few good individuals in the system.

Concerns:

• A sincere lawyer and vigilant family members, luxuries that only prisoners with economic means have access to, have become essential to secure justice.
• The case highlights poor design and the absence of an integrated digital platform for the criminal justice system.
  • This poor design can have enervating effects on individual freedom.
• While digitisation has transformed the delivery of certain public services like passports, the criminal justice system involves archaic procedures and paper-based processes.
• Although the eCourts project has made significant progress in digitising the works of courts, there remain substantial lacunae.
• Criminal cases involve various institutions such as the police, prosecutors, legal services authorities and forensic labs. Coordination and communication between these institutions are far from seamless.

Way Forward:

• An effective justice system should be robust enough to ensure justice for everyone, irrespective of the individual in charge.
• Allowing these various elements of the system to communicate through a digital platform that standardises the format and content of data across all the systems will allow for seamless communication and will help avoid duplication of data entry and analyses.
• If such a platform can track cases from when an FIR is filed till the stage of appeal, it is unlikely that a case would fall through the cracks.
  • Such a system would have alerted the registry that defects in a particular appeal had been left unrectified for an extended period and would have alerted the accused person in prison that his lawyer was not pursuing his case diligently.
  • The legal services authority would have been informed of the case so that the lawyer could have been replaced.
  • The digital platform would have been able to monitor the quality of representation of the lawyer provided by the legal services authority.
• Once the prisoner had served 14 years of his sentence, the system would have alerted the State government that he was eligible for commutation of his sentence.
• The documents from the lower court would have been transmitted electronically to the accused person’s lawyer and the High Court eliminating the endless wait for the ‘paperbook’.

Conclusion:

• Although the Interoperable Criminal Justice System is being discussed, to integrate the information systems of the various institutions in the criminal justice system, it is far from being fully implemented.
• A critical factor holding back implementation is that these institutions have already created their own information systems that work in silos and are not interoperable.
• Priority must be given to speeding up the implementation of such a system that provides transparent, real-time access to criminal justice information to all stakeholders, including accused persons.

2. Corrective voice

Context:

The Supreme Court recently laid down guidelines for the judiciary in dealing with cases of sexual crime. It forbade judges from making gender-stereotypical comments.

Concerns:

• Powerful men seem to be reiterating misogyny besides carelessly linking sexual crimes to women being alone at night or wearing clothes of their choice.
• Women are battling society’s ingrained prejudices, and the judgment acknowledges this bitter reality, saying gender violence is most often covered up in a culture of silence.
• Pointing to the entrenched unequal power equations between men and women, including cultural and social norms, financial dependence, and poverty, it said data may not reflect the actual incidence of violence against women.

Details:

• While recognising society’s deep-rooted patriarchy, it initiated a course correction in the way the judiciary itself views gender rights.
• The two-member Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and S. Ravindra Bhat used a quote to say that a woman ‘cannot be herself’ in an ‘exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men’, and laid it down as a guiding force for all future judicial proclamations.
• It asked all courts to refrain from imposing marriage or mandate any compromise between a sex offender and his victim.
• Drawing from the ‘Bangkok General Guidance for Judges on Applying a Gender Perspective in Southeast Asia’, the Bench listed a host of avoidable stereotypes such as:
  • women are physically weak;
  • men are the head of the household and must make all the decisions related to family;
  • women should be submissive and obedient.

Conclusion:

• This is not the first time the Supreme Court is clamping down against gender stereotyping.
• Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had argued against treating women in the Army any differently from their men counterparts for they worked as equal citizens in a common mission.
• In Anuj Garg case, the Court had called out the notion of romantic paternalism as an attempt to put women in a cage.
• To break the silence on bias against women, everyone must take responsibility, especially institutions and those in important positions.
• The Supreme Court’s reiteration on where it needs to stand on women’s rights is a step in the right direction.

3. An extraordinary legislative misadventure

Context:

Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021 has been passed by the Lok Sabha.

This issue has been comprehensively covered in 21^st March 2021 and 23^rd March 2021 Comprehensive News Analysis.

Q1. Consider the following statements:

Q2. SAANS and the SUMAN initiative have been launched under which of the following?

Q3. Consider the following statements with respect to Project Mausam:

Q4. Which of the following treatises on music are correctly matched with their authors?

Read the previous CNA here.

CNA 24th March 2021:- Download PDF Here