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The BJP government in Assam has decided to set up a panel towards handling a “part of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC)” after a crackdown on child marriage – polygamy.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said a decision has been taken to form an expert committee to examine whether the government has the authority to ban polygamy in the State.
The committee would be tasked with scrutinising the provisions of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937, along with Article 25 of the Constitution of India, in relation to the directive principles of State policy for UCC.
Dr. Sarma could not provide data on the prevalence of polygamy in the State but said many cases were detected during the crackdown on child marriage launched in January.
Altogether, 4,404 cases have been registered and 3,397 people arrested under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, he told journalists at an event marking the completion of two years of his government.
The areas he cited are Muslim-dominated. But he pointed out, polygamy was almost nil among the indigenous Assamese Muslims and those who were educated.
Editorial
Green crosshairs (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Starting this October, the European Union (EU) proposes to introduce a framework for levying a carbon tax on imports of products that rely on non-green or sub-optimally sustainable processes and where carbon emissions are deemed to have not been adequately priced.
This Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will begin with an import monitoring mechanism and culminate in the levy of duties as determined from January 2026.
The EU argues that the CBAM will ensure its climate objectives are not undermined by carbon-intensive imports and spur cleaner production in the rest of the world.
This poses a significant threat to some of India’s biggest exports to the trading bloc, including iron ore and steel, with carbon levies estimated to range from 19.8% to 52.7%.
During a visit to France in early April, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said it was too early to gauge the tax’s impact on Indian exports, as operational clarity was yet to emerge.
By last Thursday, top trade officials were more assertive and termed tackling this risk as one of the top items on the government’s agenda, with several options being explored.
Explainer
Minimising the threat from IEDs (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
On May 5, five soldiers were killed and another was injured in a gunfight with militants in the Rajouri-Poonch sector of Jammu division.
According to the Army, the gunfight broke out after an explosive device was triggered when a search team established contact with a group of terrorists hiding in a cave in the Kandi forests, killing two soldiers.
On April 26, an IED (improvised explosive device) killed 10 security personnel of the District Reserve Guard in Chattisgarh’s Dantewada area. The jawans were out on an anti-Maoist mission when they were ambushed.
The quintessential dilemma for security forces is that they are dealing with an enemy who is faceless, unidentifiable and hidden among the people.
Wedded to upholding the law of the land and protecting its people, security personnel can open fire only in self-defence, not on apprehension.
Militants, whether they are the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir or the Maoists in central India, have the ‘first mover advantage’, on triggering a landmine or an IED on a mobile Army vehicle or opening burst fire with an AK- 47 on a static CRPF sentry post.
In all such scenarios, particularly in landmine/IED ambushes, the reaction or the response time available for what is called “Immediate Action (IA) or Counter Ambush drill” is a few seconds, and that too, if a few of the security personnel are lucky enough to survive the initial IED ambush.
Hence, all standard operating systems and procedures, technological measures etc. are directed towards identification and detection of IEDs/landmines and to avoid being caught in them.
The first thing that must be kept in mind is to avoid travel by vehicle. The safest mode of travel is on foot in a region where left-wing extremism is active. Studies show that over 60% of casualties/fatalities in Maoist territories are because of vehicles ambushed in landmines/IEDs, as also seen in the recent Chhattisgarh incident.
Routine operations like area domination, cordon-and-search, long range patrolling, ambush-cum-patrolling and so forth should only be undertaken on foot. Vehicle travel should be undertaken rarely and that too, only for urgent operational reasons, after exercising due diligence.
News
It depends on who is giving the rating: Centre on India’s rank in the press freedom index (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government in the Supreme Court, made light of India’s fall to 161st position in press freedom ranking, saying “that depends on who is giving the rating. I can have my own forum and give India the first rating”.
The remark was in response to the Supreme Court’s observation that India has fallen to the 161st position out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index published by the non-profit organisation, Reporters Without Borders. In 2022, India was ranked at 150.
India is ranked behind countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.
India is 161 in ranking in journalistic freedom,” Justice K.M. Joseph, addressed the Union and Gujarat governments, represented by Mr. Mehta, during a hearing in the Bilkis Bano case.
The exchange between Justice Joseph and Mr. Mehta came while the Supreme Court ordered the publication of a notice giving the details of the case and the next date of court hearing, July 10, in two vernacular papers in Gujarat to alert those unserved among the 11 convicts who were released prematurely from their life imprisonment.
They had been found guilty of the gang rape of Ms. Bano and the murder of her family members. Ms. Bano and other writ petitioners have separately challenged their remission.
The discussion was on the choice of the two newspapers and their circulation in Gujarat. Mr. Mehta said there were local papers published daily evening in every city of Gujarat.
World
Pakistan and China agree to extend CPEC to Afghanistan (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Pakistan, China and Afghanistan have agreed to forge closer economic ties by extending the Beijing-backed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan to fully harness the country’s potential as a hub for regional connectivity.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang and Afghanistan’s Taliban-appointed acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi held the 5th China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue, where they also underlined the need to prevent any group from using their territories for terror activities against any nation.
Business
IBM, NASA model to gauge climate change (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
IBM in collaboration with NASA unveiled a new geospatial foundation model designed to convert satellite data into high-resolution maps of floods, fires, and other landscape changes to reveal the planet’s past and hint at its future.
This geospatial offering is expected to be available for preview in the second half of this year. Potential applications of this platform would include helping estimate climate-related risks to crops, buildings, and other infrastructure, valuing and monitoring forests for carbon-offset programmes, and developing predictive models to help enterprises create strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Arvind Krishna, IBM Chairman and CEO said foundation models make deploying AI significantly more scalable, affordable and efficient.
This model would be part of IBM’swatsonx.ai, a next generation enterprise studio for AI builders to train, test, tune and deploy both traditional machine learning and new-generation AI capabilities.