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The Uttarakhand government tabled the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) 2024 Bill in the Assembly on Tuesday. It makes important changes in areas such as marriage, divorce, and succession.
First, the proposed UCC brings the minimum age of marriage to 18 and 21 for Muslim women and men, in line with the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
This issue has been debated in courts since Muslim law allows puberty (presumed at 13 years) as the age of marriage for girls.
Since Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) criminalised sexual activity between minors and the Prevention of Child Marriage Act prohibited marriage between minors, the Muslim age of marriage was at odds with these laws.
In December 2022, the National Commission for Women challenged in the Supreme Court the practice of allowing minors to get married. The case is pending before a bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud.
Indigenous CAR-T cell therapy gets rolling: first patient is cancer free (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
A year ago, if someone had told Dr (Col) V K Gupta, 64, that he would not just be declared “free of cancer cells” — despite a failed bone marrow transplant in 2022 — but would be able to get back to work in 2024, he would have brushed it off as polite optimism.
Months after India’s drug regulator approved the commercial use of CAR-T cell therapy, a pioneering treatment that genetically reprogrammes a patient’s immune system to fight cancer, Gupta, a Delhi-based gastroenterologist, became one of the first patients to access the therapy by paying Rs 42 lakh — a treatment that costs approximately Rs 3-4 crore abroad.
Doctors at the Tata Memorial Hospital, where he underwent the procedure, said he is “currently free of cancer cells”, the first commercial patient to achieve that status.
“While it’s premature to claim a lifelong cure, the patient is currently free of cancer cells,” said Dr Hasmukh Jain, hemato-oncologist and associate professor at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Tata Memorial Centre, who performed the CAR-T cell therapy on Gupta.
In Parliament
Rajya Sabha passes bill to amend water act decriminalise minor pollution linked crimes (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Rajya Sabha passed the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Bill, which seeks to decriminalise minor offences related to water pollution, and exempt certain categories of industrial plants from statutory restrictions.
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said development and environment protection must go together. “There should be harmony in ease of living and ease of doing business. Its provisions will lead to greater transparency in dealing with various issues related to water pollution.
The Bill, which seeks to amend the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, was approved by the Rajya Sabha by voice vote.
According to the statement of objects and reasons of the Bill, the amendment proposes to rationalise criminal provisions and ensure that citizens, businesses and companies operate without fear of imprisonment for minor, technical or procedural defaults. Also, the nature of penal consequence of an offence must be commensurate with the seriousness of offence, it added.
RS passes bills seeking to modify SC / ST list in Odisha and Andhra (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Rajya Sabha passed two Bills, which seek to modify the list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
The Upper House cleared the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024, and the Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024, by voice vote.
The first Bill seeks to modify the SC/ST list in Andhra Pradesh, while the second seeks to modify the SC/ST list in Odisha. Both bills were piloted by Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda.
Replying to the debate, Munda said both Bills have been brought with long-term planning. “In Andhra Pradesh, three more ethnic groups — Bondo Porja, Khond Porja, Parangiperja — are being added to the list of STs.
While in Odisha, it will add four groups in the list. All these are Primitive Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) and they have been added to the scheduled list after 75 years of Independence.
“There are 75 PVTGs which are spread from Andaman Island to the mainland. The government has started a scheme and worked in mission mode with a target to reach them in the far-flung areas in which they reside.
The names of such 10 PVTGs were not added in the list of scheduled tribes and they were deprived of conditional rights and faced injustice.”
Govt & Politics
Indians can now visit Iran visa free for up to 15 days (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Iranian government has announced a visa-free travel regime for Indian tourists entering the country by air and staying for a maximum of 15 days.
The government of Iran has abolished visas for Indian citizens from February 4 subject to four conditions, the Iranian embassy in India said.
According to the new rules, Indians with ordinary passports will be allowed to enter Iran without a visa once every six months, with a maximum stay of 15 days.
The visa abolition specifically applies to Indian nationals who enter Iran by air, and applies only to those going there for tourism.
As per the rules, Indian nationals who wish to stay for a longer period, or want to make multiple entries within six months, or require other types of permissions, must obtain necessary visas from the Iranian missions in India.
In December last year, Iran had announced its decision to lift visa requirements for Indian citizens as well as 32 other countries, including Russia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil and Belarus.
Editorial
The General’s Raj (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
This week’s story from Pakistan is not about who might win the national and provincial assembly elections there; it centres on army chief General Asim Munir, who is trying to consolidate his power.
It does not really matter who Munir “selects” to run the front office (as the prime minister of the government). The fact is that Munir has put himself fully in charge of Pakistan.
Having gambled big to put down the immensely popular Imran Khan, rearrange the political field, and push for major economic reform, Munir does not look like a man who will walk into the sunset when his term ends in late 2025.
Like many of the previous chiefs, General Munir would want to stick around. Pakistan’s near-term fortunes, then, appear tied inextricably to Asim Munir’s.
Although Munir seems to be following the familiar path of his predecessors at the GHQ in Rawalpindi in punishing civilian political leaders that come in their way, his task is complicated by the multiple crises buffeting the nation at home and the incredible shrinking of Pakistan in the region and the world.
Ideas Page
Policy must address growth gap (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The interim Union budget presented on February 1 was only a vote on account since the general elections are due soon. However, it still gives a picture of the government’s thinking on macroeconomic policy objectives and allows us to ask if the approach is correct, given the challenges currently facing the Indian economy.
First, let us recapitulate some numbers. In nominal terms, budgeted total expenditure at Rs 47.8 lakh crore is higher by 6.1 per cent over the revised estimates for 2023-24.
This increase is the lowest in two decades. In keeping with previous years, capital expenditure has seen a large increase (though less than the increase last year) at 16.9 per cent to Rs 11.1 lakh crore.
Revenue expenditure, net of interest payments on government debt, has declined by 0.8 per cent. It had contracted more sharply last year by 3 per cent.
In real terms, assuming a rate of inflation of 5 per cent, total expenditure is mostly stagnant while non-interest revenue expenditure has declined by 5.5 per cent.
Thus it is overall a fiscally conservative, if not contractionary, budget. It also continues to shift the composition of expenditure towards capex as has been the trend in the last few years.
Economy
PM Modi says India making unprecedented investments, invites global majors to invest (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India is investing in the energy sector at unprecedented levels in view of rapidly rising demand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, as he invited global energy majors to invest in India.
Speaking at the India Energy Week in Goa, Modi noted that various estimates suggest that India’s energy demand is likely to double from current levels by 2045 and the country is already preparing to meet the demand surge.
Underscoring India’s position as a major energy market, Modi said the country is already the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and the fourth-largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer, crude oil refiner, and automobile market.
The demand for these energy sources, as well as new and renewable sources is only set to rise, making India a global driver of energy demand in the years to come.
Explained
Uttarakhand civil code how needle has moved (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami tabled the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill in the state Assembly. This came after the state-appointed committee led by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana P Desai submitted its draft on February 2.
The law will govern personal law subjects such as marriage, inheritance, divorce, and adoption uniformly across communities.
The enactment of the UCC was one of the BJP’s key poll promises in the state ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections. Similar Bills may soon be placed before the Gujarat and Assam assemblies as well.
The promise to pass the UCC stems from Article 44 of the Constitution of India — a directive principle saying, “The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.”
This Article was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 23, 1948, after a spirited debate.
Mohammad Ismail Khan, an Assembly member from the All India Muslim League (AIML, the Indian faction of the pre-Partition Muslim League), opened the debate by suggesting an addition to Article 35 (which would later become Article 44) of the Draft Constitution.
He pushed to include the proviso: “Provided that any group, section, or community of people shall not be obliged to give up its own personal law in case it has such a law.”