Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
After India firmly told China that its violation of the border pacts has “eroded” the entire basis of bilateral ties, China’s defence ministry on Friday said the situation at the border is “generally stable” and both sides should put the boundary issue in an “appropriate position” and promote its transition to “normalised management”.
China’s defence minister General Li Shangfu, who is in New Delhi to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers conference, held a 45-minute-long meeting with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh during which the two ministers discussed the standoff at the eastern Ladakh area since May 2020.
At the meeting, Singh told Gen Li that China’s violation of border agreements “eroded” the entire basis of ties between the two countries and that all issues relating to the frontier must be resolved in accordance with the existing pacts.
A Chinese Defence Ministry statement issued here on Friday said that during the meeting the two sides exchanged views on militaries and bilateral relations.
Gen. Li pointed out that “currently, the situation on the China-India border is generally stable and the two sides have maintained communication through military and diplomatic channels”.
The two sides should take a long-term view, place the border issue in an appropriate position in bilateral relations, and promote the transition of the border situation to normalised management.
It is hoped that the two sides will work together to continuously enhance mutual trust between the two militaries and make proper contributions to the development of bilateral relations.
He said that as major neighbouring countries and important developing countries, China and India share far more common interests than differences.
The two sides should view bilateral relations and each other’s development from a comprehensive, long-term and strategic perspective, and jointly contribute wisdom and strength to world and regional peace and stability.
The Indian government sources in New Delhi said Singh conveyed to Li that after disengagement in remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh, there should be a movement towards de-escalation and expressed hope for a “positive response”.
In a statement, India’s defence ministry said the two ministers had “frank discussions” about the developments in the India-China border areas as well as bilateral relations.
The meeting between the two defence ministers took place days after the Indian and Chinese armies held the 18th round of military talks on ending the border row.
Editorial Page
Nation and its people (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
A standard topic at college debates in the 1970s, when I was a student, used to be ‘Population: Bane or boon’. The almost celebratory manner in which many reacted to the news that India has now become the world’s most populous nation, overtaking China, stands in sharp contrast to a widely-shared view in our student days that rapid population growth was India’s biggest problem. Certainly a bane, not boon.
From institutions like the Population Council to the World Bank, from the erstwhile Planning Commission to politicians of all hues, from western aid agencies to religious bigots, everyone was convinced that if only successive governments had stepped in to arrest population growth, India would have been better off.
During the Emergency years, an attempt was even made to force compulsory sterilisation. From Rotary and Lions Clubs to Congress Party politicians, everyone was running a vasectomy or tubectomy camp in the larger interests of the nation.
When China declared its One Child policy, many among the Indian elite campaigned in favour of such a policy at home. While the government of the day rejected the “one-child” policy, it launched “Do Ya Teen Bas” followed by “Hum Do, Hamarey Do” campaigns.
Communal politics thrived on blaming the Muslim community for India’s population growth. Mass poverty, it was declared, was a consequence of excessive breeding by the poor.
The latter view was pervasive till studies showed that families of the poor are larger because each child brings in additional income that may be marginally more than the food and other necessities consumed. So larger families are a response to poverty, not the cause.
The change in the population discourse began when both fertility and birth rates began to fall in the socially-advanced states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Research related the decline with literacy, education and health status of women, among other factors. If the rest of India can mimic Kerala, it was argued, then India’s population problem will become manageable. Indeed, that has begun to happen.
In May last year, it was reported that the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) had shown that the total fertility rate (TFR) — an average of the number of children that would be born to any woman in her lifetime — had declined to 2.0 in 2019-21.
This was marginally below what is called the “replacement level fertility rate” — of 2.1 — that is, the level at which a given population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, and so results in zero net growth of population.
Idea Page
The sleeping state (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
The fact that the SC had to issue a notice this week to the Delhi police for refusing to lodge an FIR on the complaint of sexual harassment by seven women wrestlers — including a minor — against the former WFI president and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for over three days is extremely telling of the present scenario.
The lack of response compelled a galaxy of top national- and international-level wrestlers to once again sit on a protest dharna at Jantar Mantar in the heart of the capital.
This sequence of events underscores a point the women’s movement in India has been making for decades now: The State and its agencies are the biggest violators of the law, especially the laws enacted to ensure the rights of women, and the obstacles faced in initiating the process of seeking justice are so daunting that the majority opt out after their initial foray.
Today this is compounded by the blatant misuse of official position and use of muscle power by the accused to intimidate and silence those speaking up.
The main factor underlying this state of affairs is the utter lack of political will to implement the law on the part of the state. This ensures that justice is neither certain, nor speedy and almost routinely denied.
The result is that perpetrators of violence against women are never punished, nor are those responsible for implementing the law held accountable for their actions and inactions.
The ongoing protest at Jantar Mantar highlights the state of affairs in the institutional set up of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). In January 2023, a set of wrestlers first protested against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the chief of the WFI citing incidents of sexual harassment, while also drawing attention to other irregularities.
The government sought to defuse the situation by setting up an Oversight Committee which was to submit its report by the end of February. Until the wrestlers resumed their dharna on April 23, the findings of this report had not been shared with the complainants.
A physiotherapist, Paramjeet Malik, has now said that three junior women wrestlers had confided in him about their ordeal and he had shared the information with the then women’s coach, Kuldeep Malik, but no action was taken.
If raising their voices by some of the most high-profile sportspersons meet with such a fate, the message that goes out to those not-so-powerful is loud and clear: Never speak up. It is this that the intervention by the Supreme Court may hopefully challenge.
Explained
Wrestlers in SC: What the law says about filing of FIR in sexual harassment cases (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court issued notice to Delhi Police on a petition filed by seven wrestlers seeking an FIR against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president and BJP MP, on allegations of sexual harassment.
On Wednesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted to the court that the Delhi police feels there is a need to conduct a ‘preliminary inquiry’ before registering the FIR.
Section 154 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure enables the police to register an FIR after information is received about a cognizable offence. A cognizable offence/case is one in which a police officer may make an arrest without a warrant. Sections pertaining to sexual harassment and sexual assault of the Indian Penal Code fall within the category of cognizable offences.
The registration of an FIR is the first step towards the probe. It sets into motion the investigation and the police may seek custodial interrogation of the accused, file a chargesheet based on the evidence, or file a closure report if the probe reveals no merit in the allegations made in the FIR.
The law also has provision for the registration of a ‘Zero FIR’, where even if the alleged offence has not been committed within the jurisdiction of the police station approached, the police can file an FIR and transfer it to the police station concerned.
The Report of the Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law, popularly known as the Justice J S Verma Committee, formed in the aftermath of the December 16, 2012 Delhi gangrape case, recommended insertion of a section where if an officer-in-charge of a police station refuses ‘or without reasonable cause’ fails to record information related to a cognizable offence, he shall be punished.
Based on the committee’s recommendation, section 166A was inserted in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013. The section states that if a public servant knowingly disobeys any direction of law including failing to record any information given to him in relation to a cognizable offence, rigorous imprisonment for a term of minimum six months and maximum two years can be given, and he shall also be liable to paying a fine.
Although this includes all cognizable offences, the provision particularly mentions certain sections of the IPC, including those related to sexual harassment, rape, and gangrape. These sections were specifically added to enhance safeguards to women, noting the increase in crimes against women.
State on same sex marriages (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
The Supreme Court heard arguments on behalf of the government from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta in the case seeking legal recognition of same sex marriage.
While urging the Court to leave the issue to Parliament, Mehta argued that the law cannot be re-drafted again to allow same-sex marriage. Here are six key arguments of the Centre.
The Centre’s first submission was that various religions have always recognised marriage only between a man and a woman. Mehta argued that if a new idea of marriage has to be imagined, then it must be Parliament and not the Court which can create it.
It is essential to note that marriage, even under the so-called secular Special Marriage Act, 1954, originates in personal law. The said secular enactments were enacted not as a means to create a new social legal institution, but rather as a means to overcome some limitations of religious personal laws.
‘Legitimate’ interest of state: Responding to the argument of the petitioners that the state can have no role in regulating personal relationships, Mehta argued that the state has a ‘legitimate’ interest in regulating marriage.
The right to marry is not absolute and is always subject to the statutory regime provided by the competent legislature.
He also cited several aspects of marriage which the state has regulated, such as age of consent to marriage, prohibition of bigamy, prescription of prohibited degrees of marriage (which means one can’t marry their lineal ascendants, such as parents, grandparents, etc.), judicial separation, and divorce.
The state can claim legitimate interest to regulate, when to marry, how many times to marry, whom to marry, how to separate, etc..
Mehta told the Court that if the petitioner’s argument were to be accepted, the law on bestiality or incest can also be challenged on the same grounds that the state cannot regulate personal relationships.
The Bench agreed with the Centre that an absolute statement that the state can have no interference in regulating personal relationships might not be correct. CJI DY Chandrachud in an oral observation gave the example of a parent-child relationship that is regulated by the state. “The state requires the child to be educated. The parent cannot say I have absolute control over the child.
Rapid Security Forces (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Around 530 Indians have been evacuated from Sudan so far with 250 people taken to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia via an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft and 278 on Indian Navy Ship Sumedha, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.
Sudan’s military and its paramilitary forces have been involved in a fierce battle against each other since April 15, leaving at least 420 people dead and more than 3,700 wounded.
The clashes follow months of heightened tension between the Army Chief Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) head Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemetti. Both the generals are at loggerheads as they fight for control of Sudan’s major institutions.
But this wasn’t always the case. Burhan and Hamdan joined forces to oust authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir in 2019. One reason, according to experts, for their fallout is the growing ambitions of Hamdan to lead Sudan. In recent years, he has amassed vast amounts of wealth, making his RSF stronger and a significant challenger to Burhan’s army.
Although formally established in 2013, the RSF can trace its roots to the Janjaweed militias — a group of Arab tribes primarily based in western Sudan, including the contentious region of Darfur. They were first armed and organised in the early 1980s to help the government expand its influence in neighbouring civil-war-torn Chad.
Janjaweed militias, who called themselves horsemen, came into global prominence in 2003 when they helped the Sudanese government quell a rebellion by peasants in Darfur. While the military attacked by using air force and heavy weapons, Janjaweed perpetrated violence against the rebels and civilians in isolated areas.
Men were mutilated and murdered, women raped, and children kidnapped. Fields and houses were destroyed, wells poisoned, and valuable goods seized.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 300,000 people were killed in the conflict between 2003 and 2008, and 2.5 million more were displaced. In 2007, the United States government led by President George Bush declared the violence in Darfur “genocide” perpetrated by the government and its allied forces, including the Janjaweed militias.
Subsequently, the International Criminal Court opened investigations into the genocidal violence, indicting Sudan’s then President Bashir, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2009.
Despite the backlash, Janjaweed continued to grow, helping Bashir rule the country with an iron-fist. The President gave the group an institutional veneer, as per NYT, in 2013, when it became the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Hamdan was appointed as its head.