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Within hours of arriving in New Delhi , Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and discussed issues of bilateral interest and importance.
Delighted to call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh this evening. The warmth and frequency of our leadership level contacts is a testimony to our close neighbourly partnership.
Hasina, who is in India on a four-day trip, will meet PM Narendra Modi . Issues related to trade, connectivity and defence are expected to dominate the agenda.
India and Bangladesh are likely to sign pacts on water sharing on the KushiyaraRiver, training and IT cooperation in Railways, science, space and media cooperation.
On her arrival, Hasina was received at the airport by Union Minister of State DarshanaJardosh. “Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina is warmly welcomed by MoS Railways and Textiles @DarshanaJardosh on her arrival in New Delhi for a State Visit.The visit will further strengthen the multifaceted relationship between the two countries.
Hasina is scheduled to travel to Ajmer to visit Moinuddin Chishti’s dargah. Hasina, who is accompanied by senior ministers, will also meet President DroupadiMurmu and Vice President JagdeepDhankhar.
Bangladesh is an important partner under our ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. Our cooperation extends to all fields including security, trade & commerce, power & energy, transport & connectivity, science & technology, defence, rivers, maritime affairs.
Express Network
Internal audit report points to big gap MP’s ICDS ration supply (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
An internal audit report by Madhya Pradesh government has pointed to large-scale irregularities — from fictitious beneficiaries to non-existent supply trucks — in the implementation of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the Centre’s flagship nutrition programme that focuses on children under six, nursing mothers and adolescent girls through distribution of take-home ration (THR) and cooked meals.
Additional Chief Secretary, WCD, Ashok Shah told The Indian Express that findings of the draft report will be verified before it is finalised.
For the report, the auditors reviewed THR component of ICDS distributed to 11.98 lakh beneficiaries —24% of total beneficiaries — and found that in 2020-21, ration worth Rs 110.83 crore was distributed to fake beneficiaries.
As part of THR, raw ingredients or pre-cooked packets are distributed to beneficiaries — children between eight months and three years, pregnant and lactating mothers and Out-of-school Adolescent Girls (OOSAG).
While the report pointed out that trucks shown for distribution of THR were registered as other vehicles, MP Agro [which undertakes distribution of ration] in a written reply had clarified that it was a clerical error and trucks were used for the distribution.
Similarly, in April this year, the Centre, based on recommendation of MP government, had stopped THR distribution to out-of-school adolescent girls. It was decided that instead of giving them THR, those coming to schools should be given midday meals.
According to the 36-page internal report, on verification at anganwadi centres, only three adolescent girls were found to be registered across 49 anganwadi centres in eight districts, as opposed to the state’s MIS portal, where 63,748 girls were registered, of whom ration was ostensibly distributed to 29,104 adolescent girls.
The Centre had earlier urged the state WCD Department to conduct a baseline survey by April 2018 to identify OOSAGs. With the baseline survey not completed by February 2021, the WCD Department instead estimated the figure at 36.08 lakh.
However, the report noted, the Education Department had estimated only 9,000 OOSAGs in 2018-19. The report said WCD Department finally accepted that the figure had been inflated by around 5.5 lakh.
Modi: 14,500 schools to be upgraded as PM-Shri (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
On the occasion of teachers’ day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 14,500 schools across the country will be upgraded under a new centrally sponsored scheme PM-SHRI (PM Schools for Rising India) to showcase all components of the National Education Policy-2020.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had first announced the plan in June during a conference with the states and Union Territories in Gujarat. The PM, who also interacted with teachers who won the National Awards during the day, said that the schools will “encapsulate the full spirit of the NEP”.
Under the scheme, the schools which have been identified include those run by the Centre, states, UTs and local bodies. PM-SHRI will showcase all components of the National Education Policy-2020 and act as exemplar schools and also offer mentorship to other schools in their vicinity.
The NEP provisions that will be implemented at PM-SHRI include a major focus on achieving learning outcomes in every grade rather than clearing exams.
Assessment at all levels will be based on conceptual understanding and application of knowledge to real life situations and will be competency-based.
Meanwhile, during the interaction with the teachers, Modi stressed that teachers have a monumental role in the implementation of the NEP-2020, which, he said, should be the basis of the lives of the students.
Recalling his Independence Day proclamation of ‘PanchPran’, Modi suggested that the ‘prans’ may be “discussed regularly in the schools so that their spirit is clear to the students”.
These resolutions are being appreciated as a way for the progress of the nation and we need to find a way to communicate them to the children and students. Briefly touching upon India overtaking the United Kingdom as the world’s fifth largest economy, Modi said it was a special feat for the country.
SC issues notice to EC, Govt on parties using religious names, symbols (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court ssued notice on a plea seeking cancellation of registration of political parties that use religious symbols or names of religions in their nomenclature.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and Krishna Murari sought the response of the central government and the Election Commission on the plea and fixed it for hearing on October 18.
The court also allowed the petitioner, former Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board Chairman Syed Waseem Rizvi, to make the parties he contended were doing this party to the proceedings.
Appearing for Rizvi, advocate Gaurav Bhatia said there were two registered political parties that have names of religion in their names.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and All India Majlis-e-lttehadulMuslimeen (AIMIM) have Muslim in their name, he said, besides referring to other parties like Hindu EktaAndolan Party, the Christian Democratic Front, Sehajdhari Sikh Party, etc.The court asked whether the latter also contested elections like the IUML and AIMIM.
Bhatia said parties having such names violated the Representation of People Act, 1951, as well as the principle of secularism, which has been held to be a basic feature of the Constitution.
He said as interpreted by the SC in its January 2017 judgment in Abhiram Singh vs C D Commachen, “an appeal to vote on the ground of the religion (or caste, community, race or language) of a candidate or to refrain from voting for a candidate on the basis of these features” would amount to a corrupt practice.
Rizvi’s plea pointed out that the prohibition flows from the constitutional mandate of secularism.
Explained Page
What global trends in road safety show, and why some Indians won’t buckle up (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The tragic death of Cyrus Mistry came days after the National Crime Records Bureau’s Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India (ADSI) report showed that 1.55 lakh individuals died in accidents on India’s roads in 2021, up from the 1.33 lakh deaths in the pandemic lockdown year of 2020.
Mistry and JehangirPandole, the other person who died in Sunday’s crash on National Highway 48, were both in the back seat of a Mercedes Benz GLC SUV.
It is not yet known whether they were wearing seat belts. However, both the driver and the individual in the front passenger seat survived.
The top-end model of the GLC comes equipped with seven airbags: driver, passenger, driver knee, driver side, front passenger side, and two curtain airbags.
Seat belts are compulsory in both the front and back seats. Section 194 (B)(1) of The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 says, “Whoever drives a motor vehicle without wearing a safety belt or carries passengers not wearing seat belts shall be punishable with a fine of one thousand rupees”.
A video issued in the public interest by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways says wearing a seat belt reduces the impact of an accident by 80 per cent.
In February, the government made it mandatory for automakers to provide three-point seat belts for all front-facing passengers in a car, including the middle seat in the rear row of a car.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the US Department of Transportation, of the 23,824 passenger vehicle occupants killed in 2020, 51% were not wearing seat belts — a 4% increase from 2019.
A statistical brief prepared by the NHTSA in 2019 estimated that seat belts saved 14,955 lives in 2017 alone, and could have saved an additional 2,549 people that year if they had been wearing seat belts.As of 2021, the overall seat belt use rate in the US was 90.4 per cent, according to the NHTSA.
The Ministry of Road Transport video mentioned above was published on YouTube in April 2017, and had received just 117 views as of Monday.
Compliance of seat belts in the rear seat is poor in India. For most people, wearing seat belts is mandatory only for the front seat. It is not uncommon to find people preferring to sit in the back just to avoid the “inconvenience” of wearing a seat belt.
It has been argued that for most Indians, the safety of a car or a particular ride is secondary to the cost (or mileage) and creature comforts. Some taxi drivers have the seat belt buckled but aren’t strapped in themselves, and slide in only when there are traffic police around.
Pillion riders on two-wheelers often don’t wear helmets or wear hard hats or cricket helmets that offer very little protection in a crash.
The problem is if one believes that Indians are irrational about safety, it is difficult to visualise a sustainable solution, even though policy interventions, technological upgrades, and awareness campaigns can help.
Coming up in Ladakh, India’s first ‘Dark Sky Reserve’ (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
By the end of 2022, India will establish the country’s first Dark Sky Reserve in the cold desert regions of Ladakh, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent charge) for Science and Technology, announced Saturday. This facility will also promote astronomy-tourism.
A Dark Sky Reserve is public or private land with a distinguished nocturnal environment and starry nights that has been developed responsibly to prevent light pollution.
According to the International Dark Sky Association (IDSA) website, these reserves “consist of a core area meeting minimum criteria for sky quality and natural darkness, and a peripheral area that supports dark sky preservation in the core.”
These reserves, it said, are formed through a “partnership of multiple land managers who have recognized the value of the natural nighttime environment through regulations and long-term planning”.
Individuals or groups can nominate a site for certification to the International Dark Sky Association (IDSA). There are five designated categories, namely International Dark Sky parks, communities, reserves, sanctuaries and Urban Night Sky Places.
The certification process is similar to that of a site being awarded the UNESCO World Heritage Site tag or getting recognised as a Biosphere Reserve. Between 2001 and January 2022, there have been 195 sites recognised as International Dark Sky Places globally, the IDSA said.
The IDSA considers a piece of land suitable for dark sky place only if it is either publicly or privately owned; is accessible to the public partially or entirely during the year.
The land is legally protected for scientific, natural, educational, cultural, heritage and/or public enjoyment purposes; the core area of the land provides an exceptional dark sky resource relative to the communities and cities that surround it and the land offers prescribed night sky brightness either for a reserve, park or sanctuary.India is still in the process of filing its nomination to IDSA.
The Ladakh Union Territory administration is leading the efforts in establishing the country’s first Dark Sky Reserve.
To be situated at a height of 4,500 metres above sea level, the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve (HDSR) will come up within the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Department of Science and Technology and experts from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, are providing scientific and technological support in developing this first-of-its-kind facility. The IIA already manages the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) complex at Hanle, Ladakh.
Here, scientists have been carrying out astronomical observations using the existing gamma ray, an infrared and an optical telescope to study exoplanets, galaxies and stars through the pristine skies of Hanle.
The formal decision to set up this Dark Sky Reserve was made through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between officials from the IIA, Bengaluru, the Ladakh UT and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in June this year.
Editorial Page
Rethinking defence (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
As India’s defence and foreign ministers head to Tokyo this week for talks with their Japanese counterparts in the so-called 2+2 format, they are bound to exchange notes on their shared and mounting security challenges.
China’s growing military capabilities and assertiveness on territorial disputes are at the heart of the deteriorating environment of India and Japan.
Although India and Japan have had defence exchanges for nearly two decades, declared a common interest in keeping the Indo-Pacific “free and open”, and been partners in the Quadrilateral forum along with the US and Australia, their bilateral security cooperation remains underdeveloped.
The innate caution in the Indian and Japanese defence bureaucracies has prevented the two sides from turning their stated strategic objectives into concrete outcomes. With Beijing turning up the heat on both, Delhi and Tokyo are scrambling to cope with the China challenge.
For Rajnath Singh and S Jaishankar, it will be an opportunity to get a first-hand account from the Japanese leadership on Tokyo’s bold new plans to transform its military strategy and build on the common interest in preventing the rise of a new hegemonism in the Indo-Pacific.
As in the Himalayas, so in the Western Pacific, where Japan is located, Beijing has sought to unilaterally alter the territorial status quo.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s belligerence towards Taiwan, and the “alliance without limits” unveiled by Beijing and Moscow have intensified the urgency in Tokyo to recast Japan’s security policies.
Japan is in the middle of a massive domestic debate that will culminate in the revision of Tokyo’s national security strategy, national defence strategy, and medium-term plans to build new military capabilities.
Japan’s new strategy to cope with Chinese power involves three broad elements — reorienting Japan’s diplomacy, boosting national capabilities to deter aggression and deepening defence partnerships.
In his address to the annual Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore this June, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida talked of a new “realism diplomacy” that will allow Japan to meet the new security challenges through pragmatism and firmness.
Second, on the question of deterrence, Kishida declared his commitment to “fundamentally reinforce Japan’s defence capabilities within the next five years and secure substantial increase of Japan’s defence budget needed to effect it”.
While Kishida did not put a number to the “substantial increase” in defence spending, his ruling Liberal Democratic Party recently called for raising the share of defence to two per cent of the GDP. Japan has traditionally limited its defence spending to one per cent.
But given the size of the Japanese economy, which is the third-largest in the world, the small percentage of spending on defence did produce a reasonable defence budget — about $40 billion today. Japan is the 9th largest defence spender in the world.
Idea Page
September 6, 2018, (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
On September 6, 2018, exactly four years ago, in Navtej Singh Johar and Ors v Union of India, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court, in a beautifully elaborate decision, liberated LGBTQI Indians from the darkness of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
I say elaborate since the court was very clear that the decision was not only about decriminalisation of same-sex relations but recognised that the gamut of rights that accrue to all Indian citizens under the Constitution apply with equal force to LGBTQI citizens.
In Johar, Justice DhananjayaChandrachud held that members of the LGBT community are entitled, as all other citizens, to the full range of constitutional rights, including the liberties protected by the Constitution.
He further declared that the choice of whom to partner, the ability to find fulfilment in sexual intimacies and the right not to be subjected to discriminatory behaviour are intrinsic to the constitutional protection of sexual orientation.
And finally, that members of the LGBTQI community are entitled to the benefits of an equal citizenship, without discrimination, to equal protection of the law and the decision in Koushal stands overruled.
A constitutional court needs to be elaborate when it is erasing the 150-year-old reign of bigotry emanating from Section 377 of a penal code adopted in 1860.
In Johar, Justice RohintonNariman captures this long and dark history of oppression in his discussion of the history of the criminalisation of homosexuality. This bigotry was compounded by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Suresh Kumar Koushal v Union of India (2013) which discussed the “so called rights” of the queer community.
The music-loving judge knew that the notes of Indian constitutionalism, whose foundations are rooted in equality and liberty, have a tradition of expanding freedom, not contracting it for any section of Indian society. But even the most magical of orchestras will occasionally need an out-of-tune musician corrected.
Five of the nine judges in Puttaswamy took issue with Koushal. Justice Sanjay Kaul, while expressing disapproval of Koushal, writes that sexual orientation was an attribute of privacy. As Justice Chandrachud writes, Koushal along with ADM Jabalpur were “discordant notes” of Indian constitutionalism.
The journey of reclaiming constitutional rights of the millions of LGBT citizens in India has begun. The judicial change post-Johar was almost immediate, when a steady stream of high court decisions protecting same-sex couples came flowing down.
Justice in full flow is like the heavens opening and the rains coming down after a particularly long and hot summer. These verdicts from our high courts include MadhuBala v State of Uttarakhand (2020) making clear that the right of a same sex couple to live together is a constitutional and human right.
Soon after, in VanitabenDamjibhai Solanki v State of Gujarat (2020) the Gujarat High Court ordered police protection for two women police constables in a relationship. The couple were being threatened by their families who vehemently opposed their relationship.