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The Maoist movement is on the ebb on the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha boundary, with its cadre and militia strength heavily depleted.
The Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) of the banned CPI (Maoist) released a letter urging the tribal people to join and revive the movement in the region. The letter, released on the eve of the 18th Foundation Day of the CPI (Maoist), clearly indicated the desperation to keep the movement afloat.
ABOSZC secretary Ganesh said in the letter that the security forces of both Andhra and Odisha were trying to wean away the tribals from the Maoist fold by filing false cases on them and projecting them as surrendered members of the party.
Recent events indicate there is a huge leadership crisis, as almost all remaining top leaders, including Gajarla Ravi, alias Uday, alias Ganesh, and Aruna have fled to safer places in Chhattisgarh.
Major operations — including the Ramaguda encounter in October 2016, in which about 30 Maoists were killed and, in Teegalametta in June 2020, when six top leaders were killed in an encounter with the elite anti-naxal force of Andhra Pradesh — has left the movement depleted of strength.
A number of top leaders have either died in encounters (Azad and Jambri) or surrendered (Jalandhar Reddy and Sudheer) or have been arrested (Ashok and Dubasi Shankar).
The Maoists, then called Naxalites belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War or the People’s War Group (PWG), entered the Andhra-Odisha border region some time in the mid-1980s.But the movement grew in strength only after foundation of the present party — the CPI (Maoist).
It was on September 21, 2004, that two major left wing extremist groups — the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War or People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) — merged to form the Communist Party of India- Maoist or CPI (Maoist).
Though both the parties, controlling different geographical areas, shared similar ideologies and goals, they differed on a number of counts till the merger.
But after a prolonged discussion from 2002, the parties finally merged to form the biggest LWE group in the country, as well as in south-east Asia.
States
Supreme Court reserves judgment in hijab case (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court on September 22 reserved its judgment in a batch of petitions challenging the prohibition on Muslim students from wearing hijab in classrooms in Karnataka.
A Bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia wrapped up the case for verdict after hearing the arguments presented by lawyers for petitioner-students and the State for 10 days.
The students had come in appeal against a Karnataka High Court judgment which had held that the proscription on hijab in classrooms was a reasonable restriction. The High Court had concluded that hijab was not an essential religious practice in Islam.
The State argued in the apex court that it had the authority to issue an order to educational institutions to follow the discipline of wearing the prescribed school uniforms. The order was religion-neutral and did not distinguish one student from the other.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta even went to the extent of claiming that the hijab controversy was triggered by the Popular Front of India through social media.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, for the students, argued that fundamental rights, freedom to choose to what to wear and freedom of faith would not diminish inside a classroom.
The petitioners, represented by senior advocates Rajeev Dhavan, DevadattKamat and other lawyers, argued that the State had not presented a valid reason for restricting the religious freedom of Muslim students.
They contended that State had not presented even a single shred of evidence to support their claim that a few students wearing hijab to their classrooms in addition to their respective uniforms violated public order, health and morality.
The lawyers argued that Karnataka did not provide any material to support their claim that wearing hijab infringed on the fundamental rights of other students.
Petitioners said the averment about PFI’s alleged involvement was quite new and was not mentioned earlier in the High Court. Further, the State had not placed any material on record to back its allegation.
Editorial
A census is not about counting sheep (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1/2, Populations and Associated issues / Polity and Governance)
Among the best uses of a census anywhere in the world was perhaps what happened in the United States when, in 1850 and 1860, anti-slavery campaigners used numbers from two consecutive national censuses to build support for the abolition of slavery.
They showed the number of enslaved people in the U.S. to be rising — contrary to arguments made by pro-slavery politicians. There have been numerous instances of such revelations using the census.
India’s first Census was held in 1872, conducted non-synchronously in different parts of the country. After that, India has held its decadal censuses regularly from 1881 to 2011, despite diseases, world wars, Partition and other instances of turmoil. Citing COVID-19 as an excuse for its postponement now runs thin, as the Government thought it fit to allow large election rallies in the middle of a deadly second wave of the pandemic, that was criminally mismanaged.
But there is no tradition of anyone being answerable and explaining why the largest democracy, once held in awe for its ability to make its people count regularly, is not doing so now.
As there is no official reassurance that India will not skip its decadal Census, we can declare that we have a case of the missing census.
The best of sample surveys find it impossible to beat a census. It carries the promise of counting each and every Indian. The Government could junk, for the first time, a survey recording falling consumption expenditures in 2017-18, and get away with it.
A census is when the state connects to every individual and it will find it hard to hide or duck from the data. Finding out age, gender, economic status, religion and languages spoken yields information of another order, making it a treasure trove of findings and providing pathways for planning and resolving problems, and fixing deficiencies.
Censuses in India — well before the term Big Data became commonplace — have provided great amounts of reliable numbers over time.
They enable neat, inter-temporal comparability to where India stands vis-à-vis its own record. Important metrics such as the sharp decline in the gender ratio in India between the Censuses of 1961 and 1971 alerted Indians to how pre and post-natal factors were reflecting the ‘son bias’ and leading people to murder girls, born and unborn.
Some unfounded ideas, flowing from bigotry and prejudice, have been slayed by Census headcounts. Consider the data-free assertion that India is heading for a population explosion due to Muslim reproductive rates.
Opinion
Should the Election Commission insist on inner-party elections? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Congress is set for elections for the post of party president. Since 1998, barring her son Rahul Gandhi’s two-year term in the interim, Sonia Gandhi has been party president. This has revived the debate on whether internal elections should be mandated for all political parties.
In [the 1990s], when T.N. Seshan was at the helm at the Election Commission of India (ECI), by an executive order political parties were ordered to conduct organisational elections.
And because Seshan was a much respected and feared person, political parties complied with it. Since then, elections are held periodically in every recognised party.
If they are not able to hold an election for any reason, they seek condonation [for the] delay, which is liberally granted. And the ECI generally has been very soft on this.
The ECI does not question the result or the procedure the parties followed. The ECI expects political parties to abide by their constitution, a copy of which is also submitted to the commission when the parties are registered. It is not for the commission to step in or criticise if anyone is elected unopposed.
First, on the legal ground, because there is a great paradox here. India, it seems, is a party-led democracy or democracy based on political parties.
But the phrase “political party” [was] nowhere mentioned or described in our Constitution. The definition of a political party for the first time enters through the anti-defection law in 1985.
All rules and regulations apply more to candidates than to political parties in India. The courts have made an observation that nothing in Article 324 of the Constitution, or Section 29(A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 tells us that the ECI can actually regulate internal structures, organisations or elections of the party.
Which is why parties, on the left or right, have not been conducting internal elections as you want them to conduct them. In this sense, most political parties in India have become similar, where internal structures and organisations do not follow their own constitutional norms.
When we see the U.S. election, for instance, the selection of the candidate to be the presidential nominee is done via debate, in which the contenders condemn and criticise each other.
For instance, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton contested and called each other names, but then Mr. Obama won [as President in 2008], and Ms. Clinton was appointed Secretary of State.
I don’t know how they get over the bad blood created during the campaign. It could be counter-productive. Theoretically democracy is ideal, but could it in the long term weaken the party? These debates could come to haunt the successful candidate.
Explainer
Analysing the Kyrgyzstan¬Tajikistan conflict (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Nearly 100 people have been killed and scores injured in violent border clashes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over the last week. A ceasefire, brokered by Russia, was agreed.
The two landlocked countries share a 1,000-km long border, a large part of which is disputed. There have been flare-ups in the past as well over sharing water and land resources.
The last few weeks have seen constant shelling, violent confrontations by local communities, and active engagement by security forces on either side.
The Batken region of Kyrgyzstan is seeing families being moved out and getting relocated. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kyrgyzstan, close to 1,50,000 people out of the 5,50,000 odd population of the Batken region have either fled the area or have been relocated by the state. The situation in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, is no different. The highly militarised borders also add to tensions.
The current clashes are replaying old pre- and post-Soviet era legacies. The borders of the two republics were demarcated under Joseph Stalin's leadership.
Historically, the Kyrgyz and Tajik populations enjoyed common rights over natural resources. The issue of the delimitation of the border is a relic of the Soviet era.
While regular talks have tried to resolve the issue, one of the crucial points of disagreement remains over the map which should be used for demarcation purposes. Almost half of its close to a 1000 km border is disputed.
The creation of the Soviet Union saw the large-scale redistribution of livestock to collective and state farms, which upset the existing status quo.
Unfortunately, there was only so much land to go around. The Tajik territory saw their livestock increase, and with scarce grazing land, agreements were signed between the two populations over the utilisation of Kyrgyz territory by the Tajiks' livestock.
The ideological basis of the current set of clashes is reinforced by developmental issues, thus providing a fertile ground for the entire geopolitical space to become a hotbed of multiple minor conflicts and clashes.
The environmental trajectory of the conflict can be further highlighted by incidents which saw groups from either side planting trees in disputed areas and engaging in a physical confrontation using agricultural equipment as weapons.
Ferghana valley continues to be a site of struggle and frequent violent outbursts, with the location consisting primarily of Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks, who have historically shared common sociological specificities, economic activities, and religious practices.
The case of nikahhalala in India, and a long court battle (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Sameena Begum, a Delhi-based victim of instant triple talaq and a fraud marriage approached the Supreme Court in 2018 seeking a ban on nikahhalala.
Following her petition, the Court issued notices to the Government of India, the National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission for Women and the National Minorities Commission. The five-judge Bench headed by Justice Indira Banerjee shall hear the case this October.
Sameena Begum filed a PIL seeking the annulment of halala marriage and polygamy. She requested the court that Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, be declared arbitrary and in violation of Articles 14, 15, 21 and 25 of the Constitution.
She has also requested the court to ensure that provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, apply to all Indian citizens. She contended that nikahhalala is rape under IPC Section 375.
She was not alone in seeking annulment of nikahhalala. With her was FarzanaParveen who used to live in Noida with her husband Abdul Qadir.
Qadir pronounced triple talaq but later put a condition to accept her back: she should undergo halala marriage. Parveen refused to marry another man for the sake of getting back to Qadir. Instead, she sought judicial redress, seeking a ban on nikahhalala.
The Koran allows a man to divorce his wife a maximum of two times. On both the occasions, separated by at least one menstrual cycle — instant triple talaq is not mentioned anywhere in the Koran — he is allowed to cancel the divorce, through word or action during iddah or the waiting period that follows a divorce pronouncement.
If the spouses fail to resume cohabitation during this period, they are allowed to remarry without any third-party intervention. This can be done only twice.
If the man takes his wife back after the second pronouncement of divorce and then divorces her for the third time, he is not allowed to marry her again. The woman becomes an independent being with full choice over her life.
Halala, the way the Koran speaks of it, empowers women to take independent decisions. It saves women from temperamental husbands who divorce in a fit of anger, then cancel it, then divorce again, unleashing an endless cycle of marriage and divorce.
The Indian reality is way removed from the scriptural injunctions. Often a man pronounces triple talaq in a fit of anger. A little later, he realises his mistake and approaches a maulana who often tells him that he has exhausted all three chances at divorce; his erstwhile wife is now prohibited to him for reconciliation unless she marries another man, and he either divorces her or dies.
News
Central govt. signs Rs. 1,700¬cr. deal for BrahMos missiles (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Defence Ministry signed a Rs. 1,700-crore contract with BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd for 35 combat and three practice BrahMos supersonic surface-to-surface cruise missiles for two P-15B class of stealth guided missile destroyers of the Indian Navy.
Induction of these dual-role capable missiles will significantly enhance the operational capability of the Navy fleet assets. BrahMos is a joint venture between the DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya and the missile derives its name from Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers.
NCC and UNEP sign MoU on tackling plastic pollution (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The National Cadet Corps (NCC) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to tackle the issue of plastic pollution and achieve the universal goal of clean water bodies through ‘PuneetSagarAbhiyan’ and ‘Tide Turners Plastic Challenge programme’.
The MoUwas signed between Director-General NCC Lt. Gen. Gurbirpal Singh and Resident Representative, UN World Food Programme BishowParajuli in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
The aim of the MoU between the NCC and the UNEP is to synergise and collate efforts towards engaging youth for promoting clean water bodies.
The objective is to engage in capacity building and awareness on environmental sustainability through information sharing and training initiatives; promote opportunities for NCC cadets to participate in appropriate national and international platforms related to environment and climate change and engage in and develop joint initiatives of mutual intent pertaining to environment and climate change.
The MoU, to remain in force for a period of three years, aims at consolidating, developing and detailing their cooperation and effectiveness to achieve the common objectives in the field of environment.
The NCC had, on December 1, 2021, launched ‘PuneetSagarAbhiyan’, a nationwide campaign, initially for one month, to clean sea shores of plastic and other waste material, while raising awareness about the importance of cleanliness.
It was subsequently extended as a pan-India round-the-year campaign to cover rivers and other water bodies as well.
Since the launch of ‘ PuneetSagarAbhiyan’, over 100 tonnes of plastic waste have been collected from nearly 1,900 locations by more than 12 lakh NCC cadets, alumni and volunteers, impacting 1.5 crore people.
Of the approximately 100 tonnes of collected plastic waste, more than 60 tonnes have been handed over for recycling.
Business
Telecom bill moots licensing of OTT apps, dues waiver (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The government has released the draft of ‘The Indian Telecommunication Act, 2022’ wherein it has proposed several significant changes, including provisions for waiving off dues for financially stressed operators, bringing over-the-top (OTT) platforms (such as WhatsApp, Zoom, Netflix) within the ambit of telecom services that require a licence to operate, and provisions for message interception in case of public emergency.
The Bill, released late on Wednesday inviting comments from stakeholders, seeks to replace the existing framework comprising the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933, and the Telegraph Wires (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1950, that govern the sector.
It’s an interactive system in which industry’s concerns are addressed by the government and the government’s concern are duly taken into consideration by the industry. That is important because we have to look at the protection of users.
The explanatory note said the Bill aims to consolidate and amend laws governing provision, development, expansion and operation of telecom networks and infrastructure, and spectrum assignment.
The Bill proposes a framework to address defaults in payment by a licencee, whereby under “extraordinary circumstances”, the government may allow for deferred payment, conversion of a part or all of it into shares in the licencee or even write-offs.
The Bill also simplifies the framework for mergers, demergers and acquisitions, for which the entities would need to comply with norms under the Companies Act, 2013, and only need to inform the telecom department .
Noting that telecom users wish to know who was calling them, the Centre said it had included provisions related to identity to help prevent cyberfrauds using telecom services.
The draft Bill had provided clarity on two critical aspects: insolvency proceedings for stressed telecom companies and bringing OTT platforms and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under the umbrella of the Ministry of Telecommunications, noted Prashant Tarwadi, director — Corporates, India Ratings and Research.Bill proposes flexibility to allow deferred payment to help address defaults by a licencee.