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Editorial
While political parties fought bitter battles in Karnataka in the run-up to the Assembly election, civil society in the State, without any alliance or imbibing any particular political hue, made an indelible mark in the history of elections in India.
Civil society, with 102 associations or organisations, came together and fought against the strategies of the political parties.
They struggled for around six months before the elections under the umbrella “Eddelu Karnataka (Wake-up, Karnataka)”, and the result is there for the nation to see.
They did not argue with the public, or campaign against any party, but just asked the people to wake up. They listened to the people intensely. They put forth the real issues confronting them.
They fought against the powerful politics of bigotry orchestrated by communal forces that were stoking the issues around the hijab, azaan, and ‘love jihad’ to name a few.
Their intervention opened new vistas for positive politics, secularism and peace. They did not talk about “Operation Kamala”, i.e. the dubious defection drama practised by one major party, followed by judicial interventions that involve a legal interplay of words and bizarre interpretations in court halls with a selective use of constitutional means to whitewash criminal acts.
Indeed, political manipulation has become everyday play. One such political party, the Janata Dal (Secular), failed in a big way in the elections. The people of Karnataka rejected it. Dishonest game players were defeated.
A professor at Hyderabad University, and human rights activist G. Haragopal, said that “Eddelu Karnataka” had the singularity of a movement to wake people up from political inactivity during election time.
In Karnataka, civil society comprised writers, poets, artists, and cinema makers who moved in unison during these polls. Revolutionary writers such as Basavanna and Devanur Mahadeva had influenced the people, campaigned for fraternity and fought against divisive forces. The campaign was intended to make people identify communal elements and parties.
The Erdoğan victory, a triumph for Ottoman glory
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
May 29, 2023 marked the 570th anniversary of the capture of Istanbul (then Constantinople) by the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, in 1453.
This day also signalled the electoral victory of Turkey’s modern-day sultan, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has begun a fresh term as President of the Turkish Republic.
The elections for the presidency and the 600-member Parliament on May 14 had upset most forecasts which had suggested that the incumbent President would finally bow out of office and his challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, would replace him.
However, with an 88% turnout in an electorate of 64 million, Mr. Erdoğan had then obtained 49.5% (27.1 million) of the vote, while his rival got 44.8% (24.6 million).
Mr. Erdoğan’s alliance, the People’s Alliance, also won 323 seats in Parliament as against Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu’s Nation Alliance that got 213 seats.
After the May 14 elections, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu saw the swing to the nationalist right and adopted hard line rhetoric, promising to send back “ten million” Syrian refugees within a year.
This did not attract any new support. Most commentators now conceded that Mr. Erdoğan would win in the runoff on May 28.
This has now been confirmed. In the May 28 runoff, in a turnout of about 84%, Mr. Erdoğan has obtained 52% of the vote, while his rival got 48%.
Both candidates have retained their earlier support base, but Mr. Erdoğan romped home with a larger number of votes — 27.7 million votes versus 25.4 million votes for Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu.
Opinion
From Master of the Roster to Master of all Judges? (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Recently, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court, in Ritu Chhabria v. Union of India, affirmed an undertrial’s right to be released on default bail in the event of the investigation remaining incomplete and proceeding beyond the statutory time limit.
It frowned upon the practice of investigative agencies charge-sheeting an accused despite the investigation being unfinished. It held that the right to be released on bail will not be extinguished on the mere filing of a preliminary charge-sheet.
It concluded that an accused’s right to seek default bail would be terminated only upon competition of the investigation within the statutory time limit.
Subsequently, in a surprising turn of events, the Court of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) entertained a recall application moved by the Union of India against this judgment.
It then passed an interim order directing courts to decide bail applications without relying on the decision laid down in Ritu Chhabria for a short period of time. In a nutshell, by stripping the decision of the Division Bench of its precedential value even if for a short while, the Court of the CJI indirectly stayed the decision despite not having any connection with the verdict.
Ordinarily, the only recourse available to the Union of India was the filing of a review petition, which is usually decided by the same Bench. There was no scope of the review petition being entertained by the Court of the CJI.
The only way the Court of the CJI could enter the fray would be if there was another Coordinate Bench seized of the same issue in a separate matter, expressing its disagreement with the ratio laid in Ritu Chhabria and referring it to the CJI for recommendation to a larger Bench.
There was no scope for a recall application being filed against a judgment, that too before an altogether different Bench. Doing so is tantamount to bench fishing or forum shopping.
Therefore, by entertaining an intra-court appeal within the Supreme Court as an additional mechanism against an order passed by a Bench that did not include the CJI, the Court of the CJI has effectively instituted a mechanism that is completely devoid of any legislative or constitutional backing.
Explainer
The lack of teachers in higher education (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
Faculty shortages have existed in India’s higher education sector at least since the 1980s, but seem to have become permanent today.
The paucity of a sufficient number of faculty members undermines the growth of the country’s knowledge sector and hinders its aspiration to be recognised as a “vishwa guru”. Colleges and universities need a sufficient number of teachers and researchers to create and disseminate knowledge.
There are two main obstacles to finding viable solutions to faculty shortages. The first is a lack of reliable data on current faculty resources in colleges and universities and the second is the partial understanding of faculty shortages as merely a quantitative issue.
In 2009, the (erstwhile) Ministry of Human Resource Development set up a task force to look into the problem. Its 2011 report titled ‘Report of the Task Force On Faculty Shortage and Design of Performance Appraisal System’, made a damning observation — “the fact that there is a huge shortage of teaching staff or faculty in the higher education system in India is not a surprise. What is, however, surprising is that this perception is not substantiated by factual data. There is no standing mechanism to collect this information regularly.”
The report called for a standing mechanism to monitor the size and quality of faculty resources and for data on faculty members to be made available on the website of every academic institution. More than a decade later, little has changed.
Most academic institutions have messy and incomplete websites containing only partial information about their faculty bodies.
While the government does collect data on colleges and universities, including the number of faculty members, for the annual All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE), this is a voluntary process for various institutions.
The responsibility for the accuracy of the data rests with the institution, meaning the information provided is not verified by any independent agency.
Another problem is that there is often widespread use of adjunct faculty members and even ‘ghost’ members by colleges and universities. Adjunct or part-time faculty members are often counted as part of the regular faculty to show off a favourable teacher-student ratio. Therefore, it has become impossible to get a reliable estimate of faculty resources.
What has India done to curb unnecessary hysterectomies? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The Union Health Ministry recently urged State governments to audit hysterectomy trends in public and private hospitals, in response to a Supreme Court petition arguing that women from marginalised locations are at risk of unjustified hysterectomies for economic gains and exploitation.
The Court also gave a three-month deadline to States, directing them to implement the guidelines previously issued by the Centre.
The highest percentage of hysterectomies were to treat excessive menstrual bleeding or pain (51.8%); 24.94% for fibroids; 24.94% for cysts and 11.08% for uterine disorder or rupture, according to NFHS-5 data.
Yet, studies have shown that “many of these causes were considered to be treatable and surgery could be avoided”. A majority of these cases were reported among socially and economically disadvantaged women.
The procedure can easily be misused by either private clinics who earn profits (from insurance money) or by contractors in unorganised sectors such as the sugar-cane-cutting industry, where ‘wombless women’ are the norm to eliminate the need for menstrual care and hygiene among workers.
The Union Health Ministry in 2022 issued guidelines to prevent unnecessary hysterectomies — listing possible indications of when hysterectomy may be required and alternative clinical treatments for gynaecological issues.
Further, they recommended setting up district, State-level and national hysterectomy monitoring committees to monitor and collect data on age, mortality, and occupations, among other details.
The monitoring committees are also tasked with creating awareness, among both practitioners and patients, about bodily anatomy, the role of uterus and when hysterectomies are actually indicated.
A 2017 study from Gujarat found most women assumed that the uterus served no role outside of pregnancy and that removing the uterus would solve their health issues.
There is a dearth of awareness, experts say, and in the absence of sexual and reproductive health education, “informed consent” to conduct the procedure can never be taken.
A 2019 investigation found that women from rural areas look at hysterectomies as a way of increasing days of productive work and earning more wages.
News
ISRO’s GSLV rocket takes navigation satellite into transfer orbit successfully (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully placed the NVS-01 navigation satellite, weighing about 2,232 kg, into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which placed the satellite, lifted off with a thunderous roar precisely at from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.
The NVS-01 satellite was injected precisely into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. Subsequent orbit-raising manoeuvres will take NVS-01 into the intended Geosynchronous orbit.
Talking from the control room, ISRO Chairman S. Somanath congratulated the team responsible and said GSLV has placed the satellite in the precise orbit.
This mission happened after the debacle during the F10 mission where there was an issue in the cryogenic stage. I’m very happy about the corrections and modifications that we have done and the lessons that we learnt to make our cryogenic stage more reliable.
According to details provided by ISRO, the GSLV-F12 is the 15th flight of India’s GSLV and the 9th flight with indigenous cyro stage. This is the 6th operational flight of GSLV with an indigenous cryogenic stage.
The NVS-01 carried navigation payloads L1, L5 and S bands. Interestingly, for the first time, an indigenous atomic clock was flown in NVS-01.
Later during a press meet, the Chairman said the space agency is planning to launch weather satellite INSAT-3DS on the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). Mr. Somanath said that ISRO will have to complete the navigation satellite constellation by launching four more NVS series satellites.
ISRO is also working on designing a new rocket that can carry much higher luggage and also upgrading the LVM3 rocket to lift up to 5.5 ton from the current 4 ton capacity.
Noting that the next few months will be busy, Mr. Somanath said in July ISRO will test the crew escape systems for the Gaganyaan project rocket.
World
New anti-LGBTQ law in Uganda imposes capital punishment (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has signed one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ laws, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, in defiance of Western condemnations and potential sanctions from aid donors.
Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as they are in more than 30 African countries, but the new law further targets lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.
It imposes capital punishment for some behaviour including having gay sex when HIV-positive, and stipulates a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality.
“The Ugandan President has today legalised state-sponsored homophobia and transphobia,” said Clare Byarugaba, a Ugandan rights activist.
She and other activists have vowed a legal challenge to the law. The 78-year-old Museveni has called homosexuality a “deviation from normal.”
U.S. President Joe Biden slammed the draconian law and called for the immediate repeal of the tough new measures. “The enactment of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act is a tragic violation of universal human rights,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.