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A month after a 17-year-old schoolgirl, on her way to school, was attacked with acid by two motorcycle-borne men in west Delhi’s Dwarka Mor, the police said Section 4(2) of the Poisons Act, 1919, has been invoked against the seller.
Under provisions of this Act, those found selling acid illegally can be fined up to ₹50,000, which is used for the rehabilitation of acid attack survivors.
The incident took place on December 14 near the Dwarka Mor metro station. Three people — Sachin Arora, 20, Harshit Agarwal, 19, and Virender Singh, 22 — were arrested for the attack.
The police said that the accused had confessed to buying a 100 ml bottle of acid from an Agra-based pharmaceutical company on Flipkart for ₹600.
While the police have been issuing notices to Flipkart regarding the sale of the corrosive substance, the response of the e-commerce platform was found to be “unsatisfactory”, said a senior police officer.
The officer added that they will file a chargesheet in the case within a month.Talking about the state of the victim, who had suffered 8% burns on her face, neck and eyes, her uncle said, “She’s able to see properly, but is still in a state of shock.”
She wants to become a judge. She was preparing for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). However, due to the incident, she had to miss the exam. As of now, she is concentrating on her Class XII Board exams, which are due next month.
He said that the victim’s father now accompanies her everywhere she goes.
States
Nod for 30% quota in government jobs for Uttarakhand women (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 2, Government Policies and Interventions)
Governor of Uttarakhand Lt. Gen (retd) Gurmit Singh gave the nod to a Bill that gives 30% reservation to the native women of the State.
With the Governor’s nod to Uttarakhand Public Services (Horizontal Reservation for Women) Bill, 2022, the women candidates with Uttarakhand State domicile got the legal right of 30% reservation in public services and posts, a statement from the State government issued on January 10, 2023.
Heartfelt gratitude to the Governor for approving the women reservation Bill. This will surely play an important role in women empowerment in the State
During the winter session of the State Assembly, Uttarakhand government had passed 14 Bills, including the anti-conversion and reservation for native women. They were later sent to Governor House for approval. Of these, 12 Bills have been approved so far.
According to sources, the government took over a month’s time to give the nod to the women reservation Bill. “The Governor got the Bill examined by legal experts before approving it.
On July 24, 2006, the Congress government lead by Narayan Dutt Tiwari had issued an order for 30% horizontal reservation for women of Uttarakhand in State government jobs.
The government at that time maintained that due to the geographical structure, the standard of living of the women of Uttarakhand is below than the women of other States.
Their participation is very little in every sector, including the government jobs, due to which a special reservation for native women should be at place.
The same order was challenged in Nainital High Court by a bunch of women petitioners from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
On 26 August 2022, the High Court stayed the mandate of reservation during the hearing of a petition as it was submitted by the counsel for the petitioners that the State government does not have the power to provide reservation based on the residence of the State.
Study sheds light on how blackbuck survive challenges (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
A new study conducted by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has shed light on how blackbuck in India have fared in the face of natural and human-induced challenges to their survival.
The blackbuck is found only in the Indian subcontinent. While males have corkscrew-shaped horns and black-to-dark brown coats, the females are fawn-coloured.
The animals are mainly seen in three broad clusters across India that pertain to the northern, the southern, and the eastern regions.
This geographic separation as well as dense human habitation between the clusters would be expected to make it difficult for them to move from one location to another, said IISc.
According to IISc, the study conducted by Praveen Karanth, Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), IISc, and Ananya Jana, a former PhD student from CES, is among the first of its kind in its scope, which involved analysing the genetic profiles of blackbucks found across the country.
Mr. Karanth and Ms. Jana, who are senior and first authors of the study, published in Conservation Genetics, collected faecal samples of blackbuck from 12 different locations spread across eight States of India.
The researchers tracked the animals on foot and in vehicles from a distance to collect the samples. In the lab, they extracted and sequenced the DNA from the faecal samples to study the genetic makeup of blackbuck, and deployed computational tools to map the geographic locations with the genetic data. The team also used simulations to trace how the three present-day clusters may have evolved from their common ancestor.
What they found was that an ancestral blackbuck population first split into two groups: the northern and the southern cluster. The eastern cluster — even though geographically close to the northern cluster — seems to have emerged from the southern cluster.
Editorial
The beginning of India’s cultural renaissance (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 1, Art and Culture)
The month-long Kashi Tamil Sangamam, which showcased Tamil culture, heralded a new era where ancient Indian traditions intermingle with one another and are revitalised with the help of modern practices so that they contribute to cultural and economic growth.
It gave a rich cultural context to India’s mission to become a developed country by 2047. The event carried forward our tradition of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
Kashi, one of the oldest living cities of the world, and Tamil Nadu, where people proudly speak the world’s oldest language, are towering pillars of ancient Indian civilisation.
Both have rich, old traditions of arts, music, craftsmanship, philosophy, spirituality and literature. Yet, for decades after independence, few people in north India knew about the Tamil saints who lived in Kashi and intensified its spiritual aura, or the tradition of taking holy Ganga jal (water) to the Rameshwaram temple, or the Kashi Yatra ritual in some Tamil weddings. Likewise, many in Tamil Nadu were not fully familiar with the ancient links between the two cultures.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a different approach and launched the Kashi Tamil Sangamam. He rightly said that this cultural intermingling was as holy as the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers.
The event saw people from all walks of life from Tamil Nadu visiting Kashi. They experienced the city’s traditions and its iconic landmarks such as the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
They approached the temple through the new corridor, which has transformed and beautified the sacred area in line with the vision of Mr. Modi, who represents Varanasi in the Lok Sabha.
The Prime Minister’s initiative to build the landmark Kashi Vishwanath corridor, which connects the Jyotirling with the Ganga, embellishes traditions with a touch of modernity for the benefit of residents and visitors.
Similarly, the Sangamam created a unique platform to rediscover and integrate our heritage and ancient knowledge with modern thought, philosophy, technology and craftsmanship.
This creates a new body of knowledge and fosters innovations that will help our artisans, weavers, entrepreneurs and traders. For instance, Varanasi is well known for Banarasi silk saris, and Kancheepuram, for its shimmering silk saris.
Weavers and entrepreneurs from both regions have a lot to gain from interacting with each other and from their exposure to modern practices of branding, quality control, marketing, product consistency, the use of modern machinery and value addition.
Opinion
Barking up the wrong tree (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
In a welcome move, the Election Commission of India (EC) has announced its intention of introducing remote voting across the country — a facility to enable voters who are residents elsewhere to vote in their home constituencies.
Considering that India has a significant fraction of migrant population, this provision is much required. The EC proposes using isolated remote voting machines (RVMs), which are multi-constituency extensions of the extant EVMs, to enable voting from remote locations.
The commission has announced that it will demonstrate the prototype RVMs to representatives of all political parties on January 16.
However, the EC’s overemphasis on the RVMs appears to be misplaced. There is much more to remote voting than voting electronics, and the commission’s proposal appears to be sketchy and grossly inadequate. Several crucial questions arise.
The problems are not insurmountable, but they will require considerably more due diligence. They will also require a significant shift of emphasis from designing electronics to ensuring verifiability.
After all, the effectiveness of a remote voting procedure cannot be ascertained merely from a demonstration of voting hardware. Neither is the design of a voting protocol an electronic system design problem.
Unfortunately, this misplaced emphasis on unverifiable voting machines has been a long-standing, ostrich-like problem with the EC.
That the correctness of a machine with the essential properties of an EVM is unverifiable is a well-known theoretical result at least since 1992 — notwithstanding the indignant protestations by Election Commissioners to the contrary — when the VVPAT was first proposed by Rebecca Mercuri.
Since then, the conventional wisdom in electronic voting — which is not to be conflated with an EVM — has evolved towards the principles of verifiability and software-independence.
This is not to say that software cannot be used in electronic voting, but that an undetected change or error in the software should not cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome.
It is well known that a standalone EVM, whichever way its components are internally connected, cannot be software-independent, which is a necessary condition for verifiability.
Explainer
The stalemate between Telangana and AP (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
More than eight years after the bifurcation of the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh, division of assets and liabilities between the two States remain elusive as the States make their own interpretation of the provisions under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014.
Several bilateral meetings between the two States as well as those convened by the Union Home Ministry failed and the Andhra Pradesh government has now approached the Supreme Court seeking “just, reasonable and equitable apportionment” of assets and liabilities.
There are 91 institutions under Schedule IX and142 institutions under Schedule X of the Act. The division of another 12 institutions not mentioned in the Act has also become contentious between the States.
The issue involves 245 institutions with a total fixed asset value of ₹1.42 lakh crore — headquarter assets under Schedule IX institutions are pegged at ₹24,018.53 crore while institutions under Schedule X are at ₹34,642.77 crore. The other 12 institutions are valued at ₹1,759 crore.
The AP Government is firm on the implementation of the recommendations given by the expert committee headed by retired bureaucrat Sheela Bhide for bifurcation of 89 out of the 91 Schedule IX institutions.
But it lamented that the Telangana government had selectively accepted the recommendations leaving others which was resulting in delays in division of assets and liabilities.
The Andhra Pradesh Government has been of the view that the recommendations of the expert committee be accepted in toto so as to expedite the process of division and put quietus on the division of these institutions.
The committee has made recommendations with respect to the division of 89 out of the 91 Schedule IX institutions. Its recommendations on the division of assets that are not a part of the headquarter assets attracted criticism from the Telangana government which said it is against the spirit of the Reorganisation Act.
The division of several institutions like the RTC headquarters and the Deccan Infrastructure and Landholdings Limited (DIL) which have huge land parcels in its possession have become the key bone of contention between the two States.
The committee, for instance, recommended the division of RTC workshops and other assets which do not come under the definition of ‘headquarter assets’.
Telangana opposes these divisions. The land parcels held by the DIL do not come under the provisions of the Act either, Telangana contended.
RBI’s revised guidelines for locker management (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In order to enhance the safety, transparency and effective management of safe deposit lockers provided by banks, apex banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a list of revised guidelines, which came into force from January 1, 2022.
The guidelines followed observations made by the Supreme Court in Amitabha Dasgupta vs United Bank of India (February 2021). The agreements with existing customers were to be renewed by January 1, 2023.
Now, while allotting lockers, banks have to enter into an agreement with the customer on duly stamped paper, with a copy being provided to both parties.
The terms of the contract must not be “more onerous than required in the ordinary course of business to safeguard the interests of the bank”.
The provisions entail ensuring the safety of the locker, its management, rent collection and verification for transfer or revealing the contents.
Banks would now be allowed to obtain a ‘term deposit’ at the time of allotment to a consumer. It would cover three years’ rent and the charges for breaking open a locker should the locker-hirer neither operate it nor pay rent.
The central idea here is to ensure the prompt payment of locker rent. In the event of a merger, closure or shifting of a branch that would require physical relocation of lockers, the banks would be required to give notices in at least two newspapers with customers intimated at least two months in advance along with the option to change or close the facility.
Further, if the locker rent is collected in advance, the proportionate amount would require to be refunded to the customer should s/he surrender the account.
Banks would not be under any liability to insure the contents of the locker against any risk whatsoever. Additionally, under no circumstances can it offer insurance products to its customers for insuring the contents.
For lockers operated through an electronic system, the bank must institute measures to safeguard it against any breach of security. It must also devise a standard operating procedure for issuing a new password should the customers have lost or forgotten them. Customers must also inform the bank immediately if they lose the locker key.
Text & context
The ‘Union’ government sends out a message of unity and confluence (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Constitution)
In light of the Tamil Nadu governor’s recent remarks on the question of using ‘Union’ to refer to the Government of India, this article dated June 24, 2021 by Mukund. P. Unny, elaborates on how the term reflects the original intent of the founding fathers of the Constitution.
The Tamil Nadu government’s decision to shun the usage of the term ‘Central government’ in its official communications and replace it with ‘Union government’ is a major step towards regaining the consciousness of our Constitution.
Seventy-one years since we adopted the Constitution, it is time we regained the original intent of our founding fathers beautifully etched in the parchment as Article 1: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”.
If a student of Indian polity attempts to trace the origin of the term ‘Central government’, the Constitution will disappoint him, for the Constituent Assembly did not use the term ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in all of its 395 Articles in 22 Parts and eight Schedules in the original Constitution.
What we have are the ‘Union’ and the ‘States’ with the executive powers of the Union wielded by the President acting on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister. Then, why did the courts, the media and even the States refer to the Union government as the ‘Centre’?
Even though we have no reference to the ‘Central government’ in the Constitution, the General Clauses Act, 1897 gives a definition for it. The ‘Central government’ for all practical purposes is the President after the commencement of the Constitution. Therefore, the real question is whether such definition for ‘Central government’ is constitutional as the Constitution itself does not approve of centralising power.
On December 13, 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru introduced the aims and objects of the Assembly by resolving that India shall be a Union of territories willing to join the “Independent Sovereign Republic”. The emphasis was on the consolidation and confluence of various provinces and territories to form a strong united country.
Many members of the Constituent Assembly were of the opinion that the principles of the British Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) be adopted, which contemplated a Central government with very limited powers whereas the provinces had substantial autonomy.
The Partition and the violence of 1947 in Kashmir forced the Constituent Assembly to revise its approach and it resolved in favour of a strong Centre.
News
DAC gives nod to purchase indigenous defence systems (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for three capital acquisition proposals amounting to ₹4,276 crore.
These include Helicopter launched Nag (HELINA) Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM), Very Short Range Air Defence Systems (VSHORAD) and BrahMos cruise missile launcher and Fire Control System (FCS) for naval ships. All three are indigenous design and development projects.
The DAC accorded AoN for procurement of HELINA ATGMs, launchers and associated support equipment which will be integrated to the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH). This missile is an essential part of weaponisation of ALH for countering enemy threat.
The HELINA and Dhruvastra being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are third generation, Lock on Before Launch fire and forget ATGMs meant for the indigenous ALH and the Light Combat Helicopter. Helina is the Army variant and Dhruvastra is the Air Force variant.
The DAC also accorded AoN for procurement of VSHORAD (IR Homing) missile system under design and development by the DRDO.
In view of the recent developments along the Northern borders there is a need to focus on effective air defence weapon systems which are man portable and can be deployed quickly in rugged terrain and maritime domain.
The Army has a major requirement for VSHORAD and several attempts to import the systems have not materialised. A major deal with Russia, which was shortlisted in a bidding, has been stuck for several years and is on the verge of cancellation.
In the interim, in the backdrop of the standoff in eastern Ladakh, the Army made an emergency procurement of Igla-S systems from Russia. The contract was signed in December 2020 and the equipment was delivered by December 2021. This includes 24 launchers, 216 missiles and testing equipment, as reported by The Hindu earlier.
Constitution Bench to take up Section 6A of Citizenship Act for preliminary determination (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said it will first take up for preliminary determination whether Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 suffers from any “constitutional infirmity”.
Section 6A was a special provision inserted into the 1955 Act in furtherance of a Memorandum of Settlement called the ‘Assam Accord’ signed on August 15, 1985 by the then Rajiv Gandhi government with the leaders of the Assam Movement to preserve and protect the Assamese culture, heritage, linguistic and social identity.
The Accord came at the end of a six-year-long agitation by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) to identify and deport illegal immigrants, mostly from neighbouring Bangladesh, from the State.
During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged that Section 6A was valid. It was enacted as part of a statute, that is, the 1955 Act. The petitions challenging the provision, filed after nearly 40 years since the enactment of Section 6A, should not be entertained.
Mr. Mehta also raised the question whether the court would be entering the political thicket by judicially reviewing the provision.
Under Section 6A, foreigners who had entered Assam before January 1, 1966, and been “ordinarily resident” in the State, would have all the rights and obligations of Indian citizens.
Those who had entered the State between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971 would have the same rights and obligations except that they would not be able to vote for 10 years.
Petitions were filed challenging the “discriminatory” nature of Section 6A in granting citizenship to immigrants, illegal ones at that.
The petitioners, including Assam Public Works and others, argued that the special provision was in violation of Article 6 of the Constitution, which fixed the cut-off date for granting citizenship to immigrants at July 19, 1948.
One of the parties in the case, Assam SanmilitaMahasangha, a Guwahati-based civil society organisation, had sought the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam on the basis of the 1951 NRC and not on the electoral rolls of March 1971.
On December 2014, the Supreme Court had framed 13 questions covering various issues raised against the constitutionality of Section 6A, including whether the provision diluted the “political rights of the citizens of the State of Assam”; whether it was a violation of the rights of the Assamese people to conserve their cultural rights; whether an influx of illegal migrants in India constitute ‘external aggression’ and ‘internal disturbance’, among others.